


The Russian

by Avalonia



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Forced Prostitution, Homophobic Slurs, Human Trafficking, Mentions of Rape, Multi, Prostitution, mentions of sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:53:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 82,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2538356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avalonia/pseuds/Avalonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Svetlana Milkovich came to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sonya

**Author's Note:**

> Svetlana's story is both a prequel and will also cover and follow canon through seasons 3 and 4. This is eventually going to become a companion fic to Semi-Charmed Life, my season 5 story. However, it will not be necessary for you to have read Semi-Charmed Life to follow this.
> 
> I do have to warn readers, Svetlana's story will not always be an easy one to read. In these early chapters especially there will be multiple references to rape and childhood sexual abuse, as well as prostitution and human trafficking. I have no intentions of writing detailed rape scenes but please be aware that this is a subject and event that will occur. Also, the way that my characters react to these events is something that is unique to them and not meant to be an opinion or statement of how anyone else, fictional or otherwise, can, should, or has handled a similar situation.

Two little girls sat playing in the encroaching shadows of sunset, shadows lengthening across the sidewalks.  Next to them, a sheet was spread over the grass, covered with toys and the remainder of their doll picnic.  The boxy blocks of the apartment building behind them cast its own shade, making their play space darken even more rapidly, but the children were too intent on their game to notice.

Svetlana was six, and Katya was five, but Katya towered over her.  This didn’t bother Svetlana.  Katya towered over everyone, even boys in older grades. Everything about her was big, from her laugh to her thick blonde hair. They were opposites in more than physical appearance - Svetlana was not shy, but she was quiet.  She could not often think of words to say, and she liked to save the ones she did think of for special occasions.  Katya talked non-stop, and she was always laughing and smiling.  In fact, Svetlana couldn’t ever recall seeing her friend unhappy.  The rare times other children tried to bully her, making fun of her height or calling her fat, Katya simply knocked them down in the dirt and laughed all the harder.  

“Sveta, your baby is crying.  You have to take care of her,”

“Alright,”  Svetlana took the doll from her friend and tossed it in the cradle behind her.  She tucked a blanket over it and then pushed the cradle against the stone wall.  “Be quiet, baby,”  she ordered.  “Now we’ll leave her alone.  She’ll be quiet when she gets tired enough.”

“Sveta,”  she looked to see her friend’s aghast expression.  “That’s not how you take care of a baby.  She’ll never stop crying if you leave her alone in the dark,”  Carefully, Katya lifted Svetlana’s doll from the cradle, cuddling it against her chest and rocking back and forth, making soothing noises.  Svetlana watched her friend in fascination, the way her plump hands so gently cradled the doll, stroking lovingly, and was struck with a sudden feeling of jealousy.  It was just a doll.  Why did she deserve so much attention?

“Playing dolls is stupid anyway,” she told Katya.  “I don’t even want to have any babies when I grow up.  I’m going to be a ballerina,”  she jumped up, extending her legs and attempting a pirouette like the ones she’d seen so gracefully executed on television.  Halfway through, she lost her balance and stumbled, falling backwards onto the grass.  

Flushing crimson, Svetlana jumped back up, brushing the dust from her back and waiting for Katya’s laughter.  

It didn’t come.  Katya was watching her, her face unusually serious.  After a moment she spoke, and her smile was back.  “I think you would be a great ballerina.  I would come to all of your shows,”  she looked back at the baby doll.  “I want to have lots of babies when I grow up.  But maybe I’ll become a famous actress first, so I have enough money to take care of all of them.”

“And we’ll live together forever in a big mansion,”  Svetlana decided.  “We’ll both be famous and rich, and we’ll have nice husbands, and we’ll make them take care of your ten babies.”  She and Katya burst into giggles at that.

“Svetlana!”  A sharp voice called her name.  She looked up to see her mother standing at the top of the outside staircase in front of their apartment.  “Say goodbye to Katya now.  It’s time for dinner.”

Katya jumped up.  “I’m late!”  She tossed the doll into the cradle and started to rush away with it in her arms towards her own apartment, across the courtyard.

“Katya, that’s mine!”  Svetlana called after her.

Katya turned back, grinning.  “Yes, but you don’t even like her.  Babies deserve to be loved.  I’ll take good care of her for you,”  she looked after Svetlana’s mother, who had already disappeared back inside.  “I hope you’re nicer to your new baby brother or sister,”

Svetlana frowned for a moment, not liking to be reminded that in just a few short months, she’d be sharing her life with a screaming, smelly bundle of brat. “Fine.  You can have her,” she wished she could give away her upcoming sibling just as easily.

With a final wave, she ran up the outside steps to their apartment, bursting through the door and hurrying to the table where her father was already seated, reading the paper. Her mother was spooning soup into bowls, looking up briefly to give Svetlana an impatient glance.

Svetlana watched her for a moment.  She'd always wished she was pretty like her mother, but she didn’t look anything like her at all.  Her mother was dark blond and with light colored eyes, so different from Svetlana’s short brown hair and dark eyes.  Svetlana thought Mama might even be beautiful, but it was like her mother fought that potential back as hard as she could, squashing it with a hard, thin lipped grimace that seemed permanently fixed to her features, and a rigid set to her shoulders that warned the world away.

“I want to be a ballerina,”  Svetlana announced as she settled down at the table.

Mama looked up at that, and a flash of something Svetlana couldn’t understand flashed across her face before her expression became cold and hard.  “You want to be a dancer.  Of course you do,” she barked out an angry laugh.

Confused and wondering why she was being made to feel like she’d said something wrong yet again, Svetlana slumped in her chair, her momentary enthusiasm faded.

“Sonya,” her father leaned forward, a gentle reproach in his voice before he turned his attention to his daughter.  “A ballerina, you say?”

Svetlana nodded, some of her earlier excitement restored.  “Papa, do you think I could be a good ballerina?”

Her father folded his newspaper closed and smiled at her.  “Of course, Svetlana.  You would be the best.”

Svetlana beamed.  “Mariya from school says her mother takes her for lessons.  Can I go?”

“No!”  Her mother finally broke into the conversation.  “It is too expensive.”

Papa shot her mother another warning look, and Svetlana tensed.  Her parents were quiet people - they rarely fought, but when they did, it was usually about her.  She didn’t want to start anything again.  “I think we can manage, Sonya.  It would be good for her.”

Mama was openly scowling now, her hands on her rounded belly.  “What about the baby?”

“We’ll take care of the baby,” Papa affirmed.  “But Svetlana was here first.  She needs things too.”

Her mother’s nostrils flared,  “Fine,”  she bit out, and she flashed Svetlana a dark look that made her daughter sink into her chair, feeling suddenly small and selfish.  Across the table, her father shot her a wink, and and it warmed her slightly.

Mama did not speak again, but Svetlana saw her hands were clenched so tightly around her cup that the knuckles were white.  Idly, she found herself comparing her mother’s tense hands and thin, hard fingers with Katya’s soft ones cradling the baby doll from earlier.  Mama never touched Svetlana if she could help it and when she did, it was with quick, hard gestures.  She tried to imagine her mother touching her brother or sister the same way, almost as if she was angry at it, and shuddered.  How would her mother be able to hold the baby when it came, or rocked it when it cried, or comfort it the way Katya had?  Maybe she’d better learn how to do those things herself after all.  Katya was right.  Babies deserved to be loved.

* * *

As it turned out, Svetlana was wrong about her mother’s ability to care for the new baby.  Svetlana’s brother Vadik was cosseted from the moment he was born.  Mama’s eyes, always so sharp and unrelenting when they passed over her oldest daughter, turned soft and warm when she gazed upon her baby son.  The voice that Svetlana had only heard laced with reprimands and impatience was soothing, gentle.  

At first, Svetlana thought maybe it was because he was a boy.  But when her sister Larisa was born four years later, her mother was the same way.  It was like she became a different person around her younger two children.  Svetlana watched with no small amount of jealousy as Mama stroked her brother and sister’s heads, tucked their arms carefully into jackets, put shoes on their tiny feet, kissed their cheeks, rocked them, told them bedtimes stories.  

Meanwhile, the older and more independent Svetlana became, the more Mama withdrew from her.  As soon as Svetlana was old enough to do a task for herself, her mother simply refused to do it anymore.  All of her energy went into Vadik and Larisa.  Svetlana often felt as though there was an invisible glass partition running right down the center of her family, she and her father on one side, her mother, Vadik, and Larisa on the other.

It never occurred to her to ask why.  Not until the week before her twelth birthday.

It had been a long day, stretching into a longer evening - Svetlana had had a ballet recital that day, and she’d been excited because her mother’s sister Yelena had come especially for it.  She hadn’t seen Tyotya Yelena in weeks, something that worried her.  Her aunt used to come over at least once every week, no matter how much Mama grumbled, and she would help with dinner, take care of the younger ones for a little while and give her sister a break.   She knew her mother and Yelena did not get along well - her mother got a similar sour expression on her face talking to her older sister that she got when speaking to Svetlana or Nana.  There must have been an argument.

It pleased Svetlana in a small, petty way that these things placed her aunt firmly on the same side of the family divide with her and her father...Lena was fun and warm and easy to talk to...all the things her mother was not.   

When Svetlana did see Lena after the performance, she was worried.  Her aunt seemed to have shrunk in size...her clothes hung off of her and there were dark circles underneath her eyes.  She was pale and fragile looking.  But her smile was just as merry as ever as she held out her arms for her niece to run into.  

At home, the younger children had already been put to bed by the time the four of them sat down to a late dinner at the kitchen table.  Yelena and Papa were full of chatter and praise about Svetlana’s performance in the recital, making her feel warm and pleased.  As usual, her mother had nothing to say.  Even when prompted to say something about her daughter's dancing, she only shot them a dour look and poured herself another drink.

“We have more to talk about,”  Papa smiled at Svetlana.  “Someone has a birthday coming up.  We must plan to celebrate on a day when you can come, Yelena.  Svetlana will want you here.”

Lena smiled even though worry lines had furrowed her brow and Svetlana was struck again by how thin her aunt’s face had become.  “I will try my best to be there, Yevgeny, I promise.”  

“Svetlana doesn’t need a party,”  her mother suddenly broke in.  “She’s too old for that.  And we just had celebrated Vadik’s...I do not want the headache of having to plan another one.”

Both her father and aunt stared at her mother as if she’d suddenly begun speaking in tongues.  “Sonya, what is this nonsense about being too old?  Of course Svetlana will have a party.  It will not be too big.  I will help you plan it,”  her father tapped the table nervously as he spoke.

Her mother slammed down the glass she was holding, and the clear liquor sloshed onto the table.  “I said we do not need to throw her a party!  Take her out for dinner if you must celebrate.  Get her out of my sight.”

Svetlana gasped at the pure vitriol in her mother’s voice, flinching backwards in her chair.  Her aunt’s startled eyes flickered from her sister to her niece before she put a hand on Svetlana’s shoulders.  “You are just overwhelmed with the little ones, Sonya.  Don’t worry about anything - I will plan it all myself.  You won’t have to do a thing.”  

“You cannot do that,”  Sonya snapped at her.  “You are sick.  Just leave it.  The girl has always been more trouble than she’s worth.”

“That’s enough, Sonya,” her father spoke more coldly to his wife than Svetlana could ever remember hearing.  “You have had too much to drink. It is time for you to go to bed.”

He stood up, reaching down a hand to help her mother to her feet, but her mother knocked his hand away angrily and stood up shakily.  “Every year I have to celebrate the worst day of my life,”  her lips twisted as she stared at Svetlana.  “Or the second worst.  The first was the day you were conceived.”

“Enough, Sonya!”  She’d never heard her father raise his voice like that before.  He turned to Svetlana.  “Your mother is just tired.  Go to bed.  We will figure everything out in the morning.”

Svetlana stood on shaky legs and ran from the kitchen.  She stopped just shy of her bedroom door, breathing heavily.   A moment’s hesitation, and she turned back, tiptoeing towards the kitchen as silently as she could, hiding just outside the door.

Her mother was speaking in a voice twisted by sobs.  “I see him, Yelena!  Every time I look at her, I see him!  She looks just like her father - I cannot forget his face!  She will not let me.”

“I understand, Sonya, I do, but you cannot keep taking this out on Svetlana!  She is your daughter and she needs you.”

“You say you understand, Lena, but you could never.  You think it is so easy to just forgive everything I lost because of her?”

“Not because of her!”  Her aunt’s voice raised.  “It was not Svetlana’s crime!”

Her father murmured something she couldn’t hear at that, and then the three of them fell silent until Svetlana heard her aunt sigh.  “You should have let Irene and I take her when we asked, Sonya.”

“Why?”  her mother’s voice was a vindictive snarl.  “So you could make her just as unnatural as the two of you?  Besides, how would that do her any good now?  It is not like you are going to be around much longer.”

Svetlana heard both her father and her aunt gasp at that, and then quick footsteps sounded, headed towards the door.  Her aunt came out of the kitchen, looking angry and flushed, an expression that faded into shock when she saw Svetlana standing there.

“What are you doing?” her chiding stopped when she saw the tears that were streaming down her niece’s face.  “Oh, Sveta.  You were not supposed to be listening,”  she shot a wary look back at the kitchen and then waved Svetlana before her, indicating they should go to her bedroom.

Once inside, her aunt closed the door and turned to Svetlana, who was already bombarding her with questions.

“What did she mean, Lena?  Why did Mama says those things about me and Papa?  Why is it bad that I remind of him? I don't look like him anyway!”  Her eyes filled once again with angry tears.  “Why does she hate me?”

Svetlana hadn’t meant to say ‘hate’.  Hadn’t even realized she’d thought it until the word tumbled out.  She definitely hadn’t expected the recognition in her aunt’s eyes at the word.

“She doesn't hate you, Sveta,” her aunt soothed but the reassurances were too late.  Svetlana had seen that look.  There was no taking it back now.  “Only the way you were brought into the world.”

“What do you mean?”  Svetlana demanded.  Lena was silent, looking deeply uncomfortable as she sat down on Svetlana’s bed with a heavy sigh.  “Tell me!”  

Lena shook her head.  “Svetlana, some things are better left alone.”

“I will ask her then!”  Furiously, Svetlana turned back to the door.

“No!  It would only upset her more!”  Lena looked at her determined face and sighed. “Sit down, Svetlana.  I will tell you.  But I promise, we will both regret it,”  Looking at her niece's set expression, she sighed.  “When your mother was seventeen she was full of plans.  She was almost finished with school here, and she wanted to go away to St. Petersburg to continue, and to follow all her dreams. Did you know that she was a dancer, like you?”  Lena smiled sadly at Svetlana’s shocked expression.  “She was very good too.  Oh, I wish you could have seen her then.  She was so different. Such a happy person.”  

Lena stared off into the distance for a long moment, before she took a deep breath and continued.  “One night, she was out with friends and when she was ready to come home, she walked by herself.  Something very bad happened,”  she hesitated, clearly struggling with how to continue.  “Svetlana, do you know how a woman gets pregnant?  What a man does with her?”

Svetlana nodded uncomfortably, remembering her mother’s rather stilted explanation a few months prior.  

“Good.  Well, that night, a man attacked your mother before she could make it home.  He hurt her very badly, and he raped her.  They never found him to punish him,”  Lena was crying now, silent tears she did not bother to wipe away.  “She became pregnant.”

Svetlana sat frozen on the bed.  She wanted to lift her hands to cover her ears, but she felt as though every part of her was encased in ice and she couldn’t move.  

Lena reached for Svetlana’s numb hand, squeezing her fingers lightly.  “Your father stepped in then.  They had been dating for almost a year, and he was so in love with her.  He offered to marry her and raise you as his own.”

“But he is not my father,”  Svetlana whispered.

“Of course he is,” Lena spoke sharply now.  “In every way, he has been your father.  You were never a burden for him - he has always been so happy to have you as his little girl.  But your mother…”  she exhaled.  “It was a horrible thing that she went through, and she was so young too.  She was not ready for a baby or for marriage.  I think the disappointment of losing everything she had worked so hard for...can you imagine?  It has been too much.”

“Why did she have me then?”  Svetlana was sobbing now.  “Why didn’t she have a doctor take me out of her, or give me away?”

Lena moved closer to her, holding her hand more tightly.  “Our parents would not let her.  They were very old fashioned people, you see.  They had never been happy about her plan to move away...in some ways, I think they were almost pleased that there was a way to force her to stay home.  Svetlana, I know she has hurt you.  But try to understand what she has been through. Our parents had always spoiled her - you know how much younger she is then me.  She was born at a time when they thought they’d never have another child, and they adored her, right up until that night.  Then they turned on her.  They blamed her for what happened. Everything was taken from her, and she was given no choices for how her life would be from then on.  Can you understand how she felt?  How she still feels?”

“But that’s not my fault!”  Svetlana burst out.  “I wish she _had_ left me!  I wish she’d thrown me out the window or let me drown in the bath!”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,”  Lena reprimanded her, looking shocked.  “Your life is a gift that was given to you, Svetlana.  To say something like that is spitting in the eye of God.  I expect better from you, do you understand?”  

“But…”  Svetlana tried to look down, and her aunt reached out to tilt her head upwards, forcing her to look Lena directly in the face.

“Svetlana, no matter how you got here, you are here. You are very much loved, by so many people,”  she brushed Svetlana’s hair away from her face.  “I want you to promise me that you will remember that, no matter what happens.  Treat this life as a gift, because that’s what it is, and that’s what you are to me.”

Svetlana wiped her eyes.  “Did you really want to take me?”  she asked after a moment.  “Why didn’t you?”

“Oh,”  Lena pulled back and closed her eyes for a long moment.  “I had hoped to wait until you were older to have this conversation.  But we never have as much time as we think we do,”  Sorrow weighted down her features at that, before she blinked and opened her eyes.  “Svetlana, do you remember when you were little and you used to ask me why I wasn’t married and I didn’t have any children?”

“Yes,”  Svetlana nodded.  “You used to say that it was because you were so ugly no man wanted you.  And I’d always say you weren’t ugly, and you just laughed.”

Lena was laughing now as well, a welcome respite for both of them.  “Maybe I am not so ugly after all,”  she shrugged her shoulders.  “Svetlana, you know Irene.”

“Your roommate,”  Svetlana nodded again, confused.

“She is not just my roommate,”  Lena hesitated.  “I feel about her the way your father feels about your mother.  I love her and she loves me the same way.  She is the person I chose to spend my life with.  There are many people that say this is wrong.  My parents felt that way too.  When Irene and I offered to take you ourselves, they absolutely forbade it.  They said we would be a bad example for you.  I think if our parents hadn’t gotten so angry, your mother might have allowed it.”

“I wish she had,”  Svetlana bit her lip hard to keep from crying again.  “Why should it matter who you love?  What difference does that make?”

“I have asked myself, and God, that same question many times,”  Lena’s voice was heavy again.  

“And Mama thinks it’s wrong too?”  Svetlana wished she take away the unbearably sad look on Lena’s face.

“She did not used to,”  Lena sighed.  “Even when our parents wouldn’t speak my name, she stood by me.  Now, I think she hurts so much that it makes her hate any happiness that she sees.”

“Can I live with you now?”  Svetlana suddenly raised her head.  “Mama does not want me around.  She would let me go now, I know she would.  I will be good, I promise.  Please, Lena?”

“I wish you could.  We would love to have you with us,”  Lena’s face crumpled.  “I am sick, Sveta.”

“Sick?”  Svetlana sat up, staring at her aunt, unable to keep from noticing again how gaunt Lena had become in a matter of mere weeks.  “I can help, I promise.  I’ll take care of you until you are better.”

“I am not going to get better,” Lena whispered.  “Oh, Svetlana, don’t look at me like that.  I wish it were different too, but we have to accept the burdens we are given.  You have to be strong now.”

“No,”  Svetlana shook her head desperately.  “Lena, I don’t want you to die!  I’ll be all alone!”  she was crying again, even as she knew she should stop, that she was just making it harder for Lena, but she couldn’t help herself.  

Lena stood up abruptly.  “Pack your things.”

“What?”  Svetlana stood up too, reaching instinctively for her aunt’s hand as the woman swayed unsteadily on her feet.  

“I am taking you home with me now,”  Lena’s face was resolved.  “It cannot be for long, you understand.  But for now, you belong with me.”

Unable to speak through her clenched throat, Svetlana nodded in response.  

“Good,”  Lena smiled, and brushed Svetlana’s face.  “No more time for tears, Sveta.  We will make the most of the time that we have.”

“Yes,”  Svetlana finally managed to whisper.   As her aunt left the room to go speak to her parents, she opened her wardrobe and began digging through the stacks of clothing.  She felt physically weighted as she moved, dragged down. The life that she’d had just a few hours ago, laughing with Katya at school, then giddy with excitement from dancing on stage, seemed universes away.  This grim reality had exploded and shattered everything. 

 Life could not possibly get any worse.

Or so Svetlana believed then.

It would not be long before she learned how very wrong she was.

 


	2. Yevgeny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her father's betrayal changes everything for a young Svetlana.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait! Chapter 2 was extremely difficult to write. It's a long one too; future chapters won't be near this long but I wanted to get past this point in time.
> 
> Now that I'm past this hurdle, I think chapters are going to come far easier and faster. (in fact, chapter 3 is already almost finished!)
> 
> Please heed the warnings below.
> 
> Svetlana's story will not always be an easy one to read. In these first two chapters especially there will be multiple references to rape, as well as prostitution and human trafficking. There are absolutely NOT detailed rape scenes but please be aware that this is a subject and event that will occur. Also, the way that my characters react to these events is something that is unique to them and not meant to be an opinion or statement of how anyone else, fictional or otherwise, can, should, or has handled a similar situation.

They buried Lena on a cold, gray Monday, clouds so thick across the sky it was as if the sun had hidden itself away to cry as well.  

The doctors had only promised Tyotya Lena three months, but it took her almost seven months to lose her fight with death. Svetlana was grateful that she’d gotten to spend that time with her aunt.  She never knew what Lena had said to her parents to get them to agree, but she’d been allowed to stay with Lena and Irene almost through to the end, until the night Lena went into the hospital for the last time.

Standing at the freshly dug gravesite, Svetlana leaned down and carefully laid her own yellow and white bouquet next to the placeholder that held her aunt’s name and would until the gravestone was finished.  It seemed pointless to her to leave such pretty flowers on the cold ground in tribute to a shell whose spirit had long since fled for better lands.  She would have rather have given them to the living, to her aunt’s companion, Irene, someone whom the bright blooms might bring comfort to.

That was difficult, however, as her mother was vehemently opposed to Svetlana even speaking to Irene again.  The two women hated each other with a violent fury, the straw that broke the camel’s back coming when Irene suggested that Svetlana continue to live with her even after Lena was gone.  Svetlana had thought Mama might be receptive to the suggestion.  She certainly hadn’t seemed to miss her older daughter; Svetlana could have counted on a single hand the times her mother had spoken to her over the last half year. Still, she was quickly be proven wrong when her mother nearly attacked Irene in Lena’s hospital room before insisting that Svetlana accompany her and Papa home right then and there.  

On the way out to the car, to begin the drive from the cemetery, Svetlana trailed her family, sloshing through shallow puddles.  She kept her eyes on the ground as she walked.  It wasn’t until she heard the voice call her name that she looked up.

Irene was standing on the curb next to a taxi, waving at her urgently.  Svetlana shot a nervous glance at her mother, but luckily Mama hadn’t seen Irene there.  She was busy ushering Vadik and Larisa into the car and fastening Larisa into the child’s seat.

Yevgeny, however, had glanced up and his eyes darted between the two of them before he looked away as if he hadn’t seen anything, undoubtedly to assist him in denying any complicity if Sonya looked up at the wrong moment.

Svetlana hurried over to Irene, throwing her arms around the small and slightly stocky woman.  “Where have you been?”  she exclaimed  “I have not seen you all week!  You missed the service!”

Irene’s lips thinned into an angry line at that.  “Your mother saw fit to see that I was excluded.  They would not even let me into the church,”  her angry tone broke suddenly and she shook her head.

“I am sorry,”  Svetlana whispered.  Out of nowhere, the tears that she had hoped would never plague her again threatened, and she blinked them determinedly away.  

“None of that matters now,”  Irene was the one casting an anxious glance in Mama’s direction now.  “I wanted to see you one more time before I left,”  she sighed at Svetlana’s distressed expression.  “There is nothing left here for me now.  I only stayed here for Lena.  Now that she is gone, I am going back to St. Petersburg.  I have friends there, family too. It is best.”

“I know,”  Svetlana nodded.  “But I will miss you.”

“I will miss you too,”  Irene took her by the shoulders and gently turned her so she could look at Svetlana more fully.  “I want you to know what a comfort you were to me and Lena both these last few months.  Maybe we are not related by blood, but in my heart, you are family,”  With that, she pressed a piece of paper in Svetlana’s hand.  “This is where I’ll be, and a number where you can reach me,”  she cast one more look over her shoulder.  “Svetlana, there will always be a place for you in my home, no matter where I am.  If you ever need me, you come.  Understand?”

Swallowing back the hard knot in her throat, Svetlana nodded.  

“Svetlana!  Get in this car now!”  Their luck had run out; Mama had looked around to see where her oldest had gone and her eyes were now locked onto Irene like a homing beacon.  Irene glared just as coldly back before giving Svetlana a quick and defiant hug.  

Svetlana watched as the taxi drove away, waving even after she knew Irene couldn’t see her any longer, ignoring the impatient demands of her mother to get in the car.  She felt colder and colder as the lights of Irene’s taxi faded and the reality began to sink in.  Lena was gone.  Irene was gone.  And despite the fact that she was going home with her parents, Svetlana couldn’t shake the feeling that her real family was lost to her forever.

* * *

If anything, the feeling of loss only intensified over the next few awkward weeks.  The time Svetlana had spent away from home might as well have been years, considering how much had changed.

The apartment that she had returned to was not the same home she’d left.  The quiet used to be broken by the shrieks and laughter of her brother and sister.  Now it rang constantly with furious voices and angry accusations, or the sounds of objects being thrown.

Her father had lost his job the month after Svetlana had left.  Busy helping Irene nurse her aunt, she had not given this much thought, assuming that he would find another one soon enough.  

It was clear now that it was not so easy.  The small town that they lived in relied mostly on tourist income - it was several hours away from any major city, so they lost out on most mainstream tourist traffic, but for many years, they had still enjoyed a steady influx of visitors who wanted a quieter vacation or even just a day of sightseeing, something their small corner of Russia provided well, with beautiful, old architecture and cathedrals, among a myriad of other scenic vistas.  The problem was, there were other towns that were just as beautiful, but closer to places like St. Petersburg, and with less time and money becoming a problem worldwide, visitors were now choosing to bypass their pretty attractions in pursuit of more easily accessible sightseeing.  When the tourists left, they took a good deal of jobs with them.  

Finally, her father had  found work in a factory, but the pay was half of what he had made before.  It had to be what caused him to drink so much more than he ever had before, and to disappear every evening.  

“Cards, liquor, and billiards.  That is where your father spends his time,”  her mother scoffed angrily one night when Papa didn’t come home on time yet again.  She was referring, Svetlana knew, to the local pool hall.  “All night, every night.  Spending half his pay on drinking and gambling the other half away.  What are we supposed to live on? His good intentions?”  

Sometimes it made her angry that Sonya was blaming Yevgeny when her father was clearly unhappy.  It wasn’t that he was not trying, Svetlana knew.  But she did not voice this to her mother...secretly, it was a relief that her father was now the target for most of her mother’s dissatisfaction with life.  

That night, Papa didn’t stumble home until the younger children had been long tucked into bed.  Svetlana had been in bed herself, but when she’d heard the front door open she jumped up, hoping that if he was drunk she could guide him to bed without waking her mother.

It was a futile hope; her mother was waiting for him, arms crossed, looking deeply disgusted as Yevgeny lurched into the room.  He started to babble an apology as his wife stared him down, shuffling towards her on unbalanced feet.  Before he could reach her, Sonya turned and left the room, slamming the door of their bedroom behind her.  It was clear he wasn't welcome there that evening.

“ _Sonya…_ ”  Yevgeny was mumbling when Svetlana hurried to his side, propping him up and turning him towards the sofa.  After a few minutes of coaxing she managed to pull his shoes off and get him to lie down.

“Do you know what it’s like…” her father’s words were slurred as Svetlana tucked a blanket around him.  “...what it is like to be nothing but a disappointment to the ones you love the most?”

She was silent at that, but his bleary eyes fixed on her with sudden clarity as she tucked a pillow under his head.  “Of course you do.  My poor Sveta.”  

“You have had too much to drink, Papa,” she murmured back, trying to shush him.

“No,”  Yevgeny shook his head.  “It has not been enough…”  It seemed for a moment that he would say something else, but then his head dropped back, mouth slightly open, and he began to snore.

Svetlana left a glass of water and two aspirin on the coffee table for him, and after a second of thought, she went and fetched the small wastebasket from the bathroom too, in case he got sick in the middle of the night.  She kept her door open that night, watching over him the best she could.

* * *

 

Any hope that the events of that night might be an isolated incident as the days turned into months and Yevgeny’s late evenings out became later and later.  Tucking her drunken father in on the couch while his furious wife slept behind a locked door became a regular routine.

Though Svetlana would never admit it out loud, she was beginning to share some of her mother’s impatience as Papa’s melancholy deepened.  So he’d lost his job - he had a new one, which was more than some people could say.  He didn’t make enough - well, how was drinking his days away making that situation any better?  She missed the way Papa used to be, strong and wise.  When she was little, she thought he could fix anything.  Now it seemed as though he’d forgotten even how to try.

Nothing was right any more.  It was like the world had tilted topsy-turvy that night, months ago, when she’d overheard the conversation between her parents and her aunts.  Svetlana felt like she was still waiting for everything to right itself; to stop feeling like she was walking sideways.  It was becoming increasingly obvious that she could stop waiting; nothing was ever going to be the same again.

The one person who broke up the dismal, never ending drone of her days was her friend Katya.

Katya and her mother had moved from the apartment complex where Svetlana still lived long ago, to move into with Katya’s great uncle, who had a heart condition and needed round the clock care.  Still, the girls had remained close up until Svetlana had moved into with Lena.  Once she’d come back home it didn’t take them long at all to reconnect.

The first time she’d seen Katya again after those long months at Lena’s was a shock.  It was almost eerie, the changes that the brief amount of time had wrought in her friend.   Katya was even taller;  she towered over both of Svetlana’s parents now and it didn’t seem that she was going to stop growing any time soon.  And her face...her eyes...there was an almost weary, jaded sadness that clung to Katya, something Svetlana had difficulty connecting with her always cheery, smiling friend.

Then Katya beamed at her, all signs of melancholy instantly dissolved, and it was like they’d never been apart.  They spent that night, and many others after, whispering into the early morning hours underneath bed covers just as they had when they were little, spilling secrets and talking over everything from their future plans to school to boys, a subject which Katya gigglingly confessed to having more than a passing interest.  Svetlana was amused by this, though she couldn’t say the same.  Boys seemed as tiresome and stupid as they always had.  She wondered if it was something that would come with time, but if being interested in boys meant she’d have to spend her adult life being married and miserable like her parents, she’d happily pass on the whole thing.   

On one of those nights, bolstered both by the lateness of the hour and by the tiny amount of liquor they had dared to sneak from her father’s cabinet, Svetlana told Katya about everything her aunt had revealed to her.  To her embarrassment, she nearly burst into tears at the end.

It was a strange, almost surreal release, talking to someone else about it after so long.  Katya was the perfect audience; she listened with wide-eyed attention, gasping in all the right places, and even dissolving into the tears that Svetlana couldn’t quite bring herself to shed.  “And your mother blames you for this?”  Katya finally managed, wiping her eyes.  “She has stone where her heart should be.”

“But think of what happened to her,”  Svetlana argued, unsure of why she was seized with a sudden urge to defend Sonya.  “What that man did to her, and then her parents made her get married and keep me.  I think maybe I can try to understand why she is so angry all the time.”

“Be understanding if you must ,”  Katya frowned at her.  “I will hate her for the both of us,”  they giggled together at that before Katya’s face sobered.  She turned on the mattress to face her friends  “It was terrible, what happened to her.  But I cannot understand anyone who does not love you, Svetlana.”

At a loss for words, Svetlana slipped her hand into Katya’s, and held on tightly to the knowledge that she wasn’t alone.

After that night, she felt a measure of peace that she hadn’t felt in a long while.  Once upon a time,  it had seemed that the worst thing in the world was to have a mother that did not love her.  But Svetlana had her blessings and she counted them; Katya and her father chief among them.  Small in number though they may have been, they were all she needed.

She would soon learn that identifying the people that you needed to get through each day was a dangerous thing, because naming them seemed to grant permission for life to find a way to take them from you.

* * *

The month after she’d turned fourteen, life was more tense in her family’s apartment then ever before.  Money was tighter than ever; she’d long since had to give up her dance lessons but now her parents were having a hard time even keeping food stocked and the apartment rental paid.  Svetlana tried to close her ears to the constant arguments as much as she could, but blocking it all out was near impossible, so she was privy to the knowledge that a great deal of her father’s paycheck was never making it home.  The first few times he’d given Sonya excuses about fees taken out or other costs but now he was unable to hide the truth: Yevgeny owed many people a good deal of money.  

Sonya was driven to new heights of fury by this knowledge.  “Borrowing and gambling!  You worthless idiot!” she’d hurled the words at her husband harder than the vase of flowers she had just thrown at his head.  “When you have two young children to feed and - _her_!”  she gestured at Svetlana without looking in her direction.  

Papa merely stood, head bowed, and accepted the stream of curses and the occasional piece of crockery as well.   “I will make it right, Sonya!”  he attempted once her rage began to ebb slightly.  “I did not mean to be so stupid - I was winning for so long, I got overconfident.  Just give me a little time!”

“You have had time!”  Sonya stormed at him, while Svetlana, pressed into the furthest corner of the living room, shook her head over her father’s inability to stop talking when silence would so much better serve him.  “If you would stay out of Bohan’s and home with your family,  we would not have this trouble!  Now what are we going to do?  I am going to have to work!  At least Vadik is in school now, but who will look after Larisa all day?”

Yevgeny was thankfully silent at that, and Svetlana was deeply grateful that he wasn’t foolish enough to suggest they use her as a babysitter.  She could only imagine her mother’s reaction.  Most others that she knew of her age who had younger siblings were used to taking care of them, but Svetlana had rarely even been permitted to change a diaper when her brother and sister were infants, much less be left in charge of them.  As a consequence, she hardly interacted at all with either of them.  Her six year old brother and two year old sister were like tiny strangers that happened to share the same living space.

“I am sorry,”  Yevgeny muttered one more time, eyes searching the floor as if it might offer up a helpful suggestion.  

“What good does that do me?”  Sonya threw up her hands.  “Can I fry up your ‘sorry’ on the stove?  Can I put it in an envelope and mail it to our landlord?”

“What else do you want me to say, Sonya?”  Yevgeny’s head snapped up, and his tone finally had some spirit.

“I do not want you to _say_ anything!  I want you to get us out of this mess!”  Sonya looked for a moment as if she might be considering more dish throwing, but after a moment, she turned and left the room, her face twisted in disgust.  

Yevgeny stared after her for a long moment, then without another word he grabbed his coat from the hook next to the front door and left the apartment, the closing of the door behind him as silent as his defeat.

* * *

If Papa had tried to do anything to resolve his increasing debts, it rapidly became clear that whatever he’d attempted had not worked.  Over the next few weeks, rations became tighter, the line that her mother’s lips was constantly pressed into became thinner and thinner, and his absences from the home became even longer and more pronounced.  When his next paycheck disappeared entirely before any of it could be funneled into the household, it resulted in another round of crockery breaking and screaming.  This time, Yevgeny’s response was frighteningly flat; he barely seemed to notice his wife’s fury.  He just stood there as she ranted, his eyes far away, his face lined and drooping.

Luckily, Sonya had already found a job, part-time and low-paying, as a housekeeper for an elderly couple, and it was only that that was able to tide them over.  Svetlana tried to do her part, looking for babysitting work around town or odd jobs she might be able to do for her neighbors, but no one wanted to hire her.  She couldn’t help but believe that it had something to do with the fact that her own mother didn’t trust her to care for young children, so of course the gossipy neighbors found her skills suspect.  

She returned home after another fruitless search to find a strange man standing just inside the doorway, speaking to her father.  The rest of the apartment was empty, her mother working and Vadik and Larisa at their babysitter’s.

“Svetlana,”  her father looked almost alarmed to see her as she entered, as if he’d forgotten she lived there.

“Who is this?”  the stranger asked, and she looked up at him.  He was a tall man who could have given Katya a run for her money in the height department.  His hair was dark and cut neatly short.  He looked to be about her father’s age, perhaps a little older.  The man was dressed in a suit, something she rarely saw, and she couldn’t help the way her eyes kept drifting back to observe him.  He seemed much fancier than any of her father’s drinking buddies, who were often his co-workers as well.  Maybe he was a supervisor at the factory.

“This is my daughter, Svetlana,”  Yevgeny said after a long moment in which he seemed to be considering a way he might get away without speaking.  “Svetlana, this is Mr. Volkov,”  he didn’t explain where he knew Mr. Volkov from.

Curious despite herself, Svetlana murmured a polite greeting before she made her way to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water.  It was still open to the living room, and she had the perfect vantage point to both watch and listen to their conversation, though Papa, at least, was making a great effort to keep his voice down.

“I do not have the rest of the money,”  Yevgeny was muttering, and she recognized that defeated tone.  “I have been giving you all I can.  There is nothing left,”  the scarlet of humiliation staining his cheeks.  

“This is a problem, Yevgeny.  A very serious problem,”  Mr. Volkov’s voice was fraught with warning.  “You are going to have to think of something, and very quickly.  I cannot leave a debt uncollected - it sets a bad precedent, you see.”

“I do not know what to do,”  Her father was nearly whispering, and his desperation was horrible to observe.  “I have nothing else.”

Mr. Volkov’s eyes toured the room.  “I can see that,”  his eyes drifted to Svetlana and stopped.  The force of his gaze, the way he looked at her, calculating, and with an odd hunger, made her feel suddenly frightened.  He paused for a moment.  “Your daughter is a beautiful girl.”

She had never been called beautiful before by someone not related to her.  The way the color drained from her father’s face told her it was not a compliment.

His gaze had followed Mr. Volkov’s to Svetlana, and now Yevgeny’s face went white, then red with fury as he locked back onto Mr. Volkov.  “Get out of my home!  Right now!   _Get out!”_  

Mr. Volkov did not seem to be put off by her father’s sudden rage.  “You think about it, Yevgeny.  I am giving you a very small window to consider what you can do for me.  Otherwise, I am coming after you and you will regret the day you took money that you could not repay,”  At that, he left the apartment, closing the door carefully behind him.

“Papa, what did he mean?  Why was he looking at me like that?”  Svetlana demanded as her father collapsed into a nearby chair.  He was shaking, sweat dotting his ashen face.

“Nothing, Sveta,” he forced a sickly looking smile.  “It is just grown up business.  I will figure something out.”

He looked so sick that she nodded, smiling as if she believed him.

* * *

But the truth was, Papa seemed to have lost any control that he’d ever had.  And Mr. Volkov made it very quickly clear to all of them that he would not be forgiving Yevgeny’s debt.  

It started with the phone calls.  The phone rang constantly, in the middle of the morning, shrilling an unhappy wake up to everyone in the morning, and when Svetlana got home from school it would still be going.  When she or her mother answered the phone, different voices, always male, asked for her father.  The first few times, he clutched the phone to his ear, eyes widening and hands shaking as he listened to whatever the mystery voices were telling him.  After a while he began refusing the phone calls, waving the handset away whenever Sonya or Svetlana brought it to him.  He wanted the phone to be left off the hook, but Sonya flatly refused that for the most part, at least in the day while her younger two children were out of the house, wanting to be available if they needed her.  She finally relented at night when it became clear that none of them would sleep otherwise.

The next week was a series of winding up a jack in the box and waiting for the horrid surprise to jump out.  One day, when they’d come home, their door was standing ominously open.   Nothing was taken.  There was no damage, no note, no warning scrawled in blood.  But it had been locked when they left.  The message was clear.  Volkov could get to them whenever he wanted.

It was even worse when her mother confronted Papa angrily.  “He was at their babysitter’s, Yevgeny!  Just standing across the street, watching, the whole time I was putting Vadik and Larissa in the car!  Why was he there?  What did you do?”

Her father’s face was a sick shade of gray.  His eyes stuttered to Svetlana’s face as her mother ranted. The horror in them struck at her.  Whoever this Volkov was, he was not a good man.  And Yevgeny could not pay him.  She did not have to know all the details to know that Papa was in deep, deep trouble.  

Soon, it was not the phone that was keeping Svetlana up at night.  She kept thinking about her father, imagining him leaving in the morning, never to return that night.  Her mother would think it was Bohan’s pool hall that kept him away again, might even think it until the next morning when he still did not come home and did not show up at work either.  They would ask around, of course they would, only to be told no one had seen Yevgeny.  Would they ever find him?  Would Volkov leave at least a piece of him, a finger, perhaps, or a foot, something they could bury?

And would that be enough for a man like Volkov, or would he still return for the rest of them?  She remembered his cold eyes when he’d called her beautiful, and shuddered.  

It was all too soon when Svetlana found out exactly how the debt would have to be paid.

After another near sleepless, fear filled night, she came home from school to find that her father was very, very drunk.  This wasn’t so unusual, of course, though it was a bit early.  Still, his demeanor chilled her.  Svetlana had seen him drink enough to stumble, slur his words, laugh nonsensically, be sick, cry, even pass out,  but this was a man who was drinking in the hopes that he would drown.  He sat on the sofa, a shot glass in hand, pouring himself shot after shot.  Papa’s hands shook so badly that a good deal of the liquor sloshed onto to the table.

She was so distracted by this that at first she did not see Mr. Volkov, standing in the shadows against the wall.  When she did catch sight of him, she nearly cried out in fear, stifling it into a gasp by sheer force of will.

“There is no need to be frightened, Svetlana,”  Mr. Volkov’s faced held the grin of the wolf he was named for.  “Tell her, Yevgeny.”

Papa’s hands shook even harder, and the shot glass he was holding slipped to the coffee table and hit it with a thunk.  “We have come to an agreement…”  he managed, before turning back to Volkov, face pleading. “Please...there  has to be some other way,” he whispered.  The desperation of his tone was more terrifying than if he had shouted.

“You did not seem to like my alternative suggestions,”  Mr. Volkov’s reply was silky, but threaded with a dangerous impatience.  “Do you not have somewhere else to be, Yevgeny?”  he indicated the door with a cold smile.

“What?”  Svetlana burst out, bewildered.  Why would Papa leave, but Volkov stay?  “Where are you going, Papa?”  she demanded when her father pulled himself to his feet, balancing precariously.

“I will...I have to…”  he seemed beyond words, not meeting her eyes.  “I - am so sorry, Sveta,”  his voice broke.  

“Papa, don’t - “  she managed to choke out.  It didn’t stop him.  The door snapped closed behind him, leaving her staring, too stunned to do anything else.

She could feel Volkov moving closer to her, but she was afraid to even look, as if he were some horror movie apparition that could be banished by closing her eyes and covering her ears.  “Mama will be home soon,”  she finally managed to squeak out.

“Oh, I am very clear on your family’s schedule, “  Mr Volkov’s tone was jovial.  “We have an hour or two, plenty of time.  Svetlana,”  he was just inches away and still, she couldn’t move.  “All I want is for you to be nice to me.  If you are, it will help your Papa very much.  Do you understand?”

She stared at him now, hating the way his eyes touched on every part of her as if sizing up a recently purchased toy.  “Yes,”  she finally managed.

Mr. Volkov’s smile spread widely, obscenely, across his face, and he held out a hand to her.  “Then come here to me, sweet Svetlana.”

With no other choice, she stepped towards him.

* * *

In Mr. Volkov’s wake, she was left twisted, forcibly broken, forever reshaped.

The blood was pounding in her ears, she ached and burned and wanted to scream and cry but it seemed at the same time that she was locked into her suddenly foreign body with no ability to move or breathe until granted permission from some unknown source.   

He was gone; the wolf,  she’d seen him leave through her partially open bedroom door as she sat up on her bed, hugging her knees to herself.  Her father had come home first; she’d watched the exchange between the two of them, the money being palmed into her father’s hand, and numbly, she realized that what Mr. Volkov had done to her had been valuable. Apparently worth far more than what Yevgeny’s debt had been.

“Svetlana,”  her father had crept into her room, standing at the foot of her bed.   She flinched away, clutching the covers tighter to her.  He stank of alcohol, the smell so thick it stung her eyes.  He looked at her, and his own eyes were again filled with tears.  “I am so sorry.  I had no choice.  He would have hurt you anyway, your mother too, your brother, your sister...I promise, I will make it up to you.”

 _How could you possibly make this up to me?_   She wanted to scream, but what was the point?  Words wouldn’t fix anything.  Wouldn’t make the universe take this back. Something indescribable had been stolen from her and it could never return.   

Yevgeny was saying something else, useless, pointless sentences that she did not even try to comprehend until she realized the way he was looking at her meant he was waiting for a response.  She stared at him blankly, waiting.

“You...need to clean up before your mother gets home,”  Papa managed to stammer out again.  

“Get out,”  she spoke numbly.

“Svetlana, you have to -”

She put her hands over her head, blocking out his voice, and held them there until finally he turned and left.

When he was gone, she managed to pull a robe around herself, and then stumbled towards the bathroom.  

Svetlana lost track of how long she stood under the shower’s spray.  She became distantly aware when the water turned icy, but she did not move, even when she heard the knocking and her father’s anxious inquiry.

The water continued to pour over her now blue skin and it still wasn’t enough to wash it all away.  She wanted to stay there until the spray dissolved her completely, melting her down into something insignificant enough to slip down the drain with the rest of the waste.

Finally, when her shivering was so violent that she couldn’t stand upright anymore, Svetlana climbed out of the shower.  

She had just picked up a towel and was trying to wrap it around herself, a trick that was well beyond her shaking hands’ abilities, when the door opened abruptly.

Sonya stood there, expression exasperated.  “You have been in here all afternoon!  You used up the hot water for the entire building; the neighbors have been at our door over and over!  I do not care what your father says, you cannot be that sick - “

Sonya broke off abruptly, her gaze traveling over Svetlana.

Despite the towel she was hugging to her, she knew her mother saw the scarlet trickle down her legs, the bruises on her arms and thighs.  

For a long moment they were both frozen, staring at each other.  Her mother’s face was an ever-changing mask of emotions:  Recognition. Anger. Sorrow. Shame. Disgust.  

“Who?”  Sonya asked finally.  

“Mr. Volkov,” she whispered.  “The one who followed you.  Papa owed him money.  He gave me to him."

Sonya flinched violently.   “I don’t believe you,” she managed to choke out after a moment.

Svetlana took a stumbling step forward.  “Mama…”

Before she could take another step, her mother whirled around and left the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, neither one of her parents mentioned the events of that horrible day.  If her mother had ever confronted her father about what he'd done, neither gave any sign of it .  Life at face value continued on as before.

Svetlana tried to follow suit.  After all, it was not as though she wanted to think about what had been done to her; if she could have torn the memory out of her own head and thrown it down the same black hole that her parents had so easily discarded it in, she would have.

It should have been over.  Svetlana healed.  The bruises faded.  She did not forget.  The nightmares would not let her.  The constant sick feeling that permeated her spirit, amplified a million times when anyone got near enough to touch her, did not go away.  But she could try to bury it, she could sometimes even go a few hours without thinking about it and remembering.

For a while, life was almost...she couldn’t call it good.  Could not even imagine how it would be good again.   But it was better, on a very surface level, then it had been.   Yevgeny arranged for her to take dance again despite her mother’s furious rantings that the money could be put to better use some other way.  She knew it was his way of trying to apologize again.  It should not have softened her towards him, but the clear effort to win her favor did just that.  

And it truly seemed as though Papa was trying to make an effort for things to be good for their family again.  He came home on time nearly every night.  He did not stop drinking, but he slowed down.  Their phone did not ring at all hours of the night any more.  

Still, something always brought the memory back; a certain deep laugh, a smell, implacable little bits of her nightmares permeating every day life.

There had to be a way to make it stop.  She kept thinking, if she hid long enough, concentrated hard enough,  she could fold in on herself, make herself into a speck, unnoticeable and untraceable, something that could blow away in the wind.

But not if she wasn’t invisible.  Not if she could be seen.

And Katya always saw.

Maybe that was why Svetlana found herself so rapidly falling away from her best friend.  Why the phone calls she’d once so eagerly waited for weren’t returned for a day or two, or not at all.  Why she didn’t answer Katya’s emails or write her notes in class anymore, or accept her invitation for sleepovers.

It didn’t happen all at once, the disintegration of their friendship.  Katya hung in there much longer than Svetlana would have in the face of such indifference.  She continued to save Svetlana seats in the classes they shared, and Svetlana tried, in her own way, playing the role of best friend as a shaded shell of the person she’d once been.  

It wasn’t enough.  Eventually, Katya began to fade, shadowy at first and then gone altogether, disappeared into the bosom of other friends and the boys that were rapidly developing as strong of an interest in her as she did in them.  

Svetlana barely noticed, not at first.  Not until she’d hear the laughter of her former friend and turn around to share the joke, only to see Katya on the other side of the room smiling at someone else.  Not until the fog of apathy began to lift just enough for her to realize that perhaps she had made a terrible mistake.

Katya wasn’t the only loss in her life.  The brief period of almost-peace at home had run out of its time too.  The slide back was gradual but Svetlana was hypersensitive to it and she noticed it right away.  Yevgeny began coming home later and later, until once again he was barred from his bedroom by his disgusted wife.  Svetlana did not get up any longer to put him to bed.  His paychecks got smaller and smaller.  Her dance lessons were cancelled once more.  Papa’s face became more tense and more lined daily.  

She tried to harden herself, to expect it, but it still was a wretched shock when it happened again.  

It was not Mr. Volkov this time.  It was a swarthy, wide man she’d never seen before, with a nervous smile.  She had wondered why her father had wanted her to come with him to the tavern where he spend most of his days, promising her dinner.  He’d been nervous and shaky - she should have known something was wrong.  

“Svetlana,” her father told her as they joined the man at his table, and she hated the way his voice trembled.  “Mr.  Udik and I have come to a business arrangement.  He wants -”  his voice broke then, and she felt miserably pleased that he was so upset.  “He wants to spend a little time with you, to celebrate.  Go with him upstairs.  He’ll make sure you have dinner.”

With no other alternative, she went upstairs.

It was quicker than it had been with Volkov, and it didn’t hurt as much.  She still bled a little though, and Mr. Udik looked pleased when he saw the stain on the sheet.  “Your father said you were a virgin,”  he told her approvingly.  She was grimly amused by how gullible a man could be.

Mr. Udik did arrange for dinner afterwards, sending out for food.  Svetlana was surprised she could eat after that, but she managed, ordering the most expensive thing on the menu out of spite.

That night and Papa’s second betrayal, seemed to bring everything full circle, winding life into a series of days that Svetlana didn’t live as much as she just tried to survive.  She hadn’t fully realized it until then, but it was like her world since Lena’s death had been narrowing a little more with every passing day, became harder and dimmer and grayer, so slowly that she didn’t notice the colors fading until her last spark of hope was extinguished.

Then everything was gray.  Endless, unrelenting dullness, each day being a string of mundane challenges that Svetlana forced herself to meet, going through the motions of living simply because she didn’t see any alternative.

The exception to the monochrome palette of her life was the screaming red of the encounters with the men that her father set up for her.

They fell into a pattern that repeated over and over: he’d try for a while, then Yevgeny’s old demons would start to seem like friends instead and he’d spend all his nights with them, drinking, gambling, riding the high of winning, crawling on the bottom after losing.

And always, always, it came back to her.  Yevgeny had no better form of credit or repayment than his young daughter.  

At least the encounters were rare, occurring every few months like a buried nightmare slowly working its way to the surface again.  It was something that neither of them ever mentioned or discussed.  Afterwards, they fell back into their pattern of silence and pretending, like patching a hole in a wall over and over again and trying to ignore the fact that the surface would never look the same again.

After a particularly terrible night with a tourist that her father had lost a bet with, Papa took her out to dinner the next evening.  When they were done eating, he drove her to the top of a tall hill that overlooked their town.  

“You used to beg me to take you up here when you were a little girl, Sveta,”  Yevgeny said as they sat in the parked car, looking down at their piece of the universe.  The sun had just set, still leaving the deepening darkness fire-tinged.  The lights were coming on in almost every window and on every building, making it all sparkle in an ever-widening horizon.  “Do you remember?  You loved to look at the lights.  You would point and say, “Papa, I’m going to go there someday.’  I didn’t have the heart to tell you that it was the same place we already lived; that you saw every day.  It looked so different to you from here.  You thought it was the whole world, and you could not wait to see it all.’

“I remember, Papa,”  Svetlana swallowed hard as she watched the last bit of sunset be quickly overcome by darkness.

“Sometimes I do not think you do,”  Yevgeny said then.  He looked over at her.  ““You are going to walk away from this place someday.  It is still out there, waiting for you.  The whole world,”  he stopped suddenly, taking a deep breath, before he continued.  “Things will be better now.”

It was a hollow vow and an even weaker apology, but after a moment, she moved closer to him on the seat.  Papa reached for her hand, and she allowed him to take it.

Perhaps she was bought as easily as she was sold.

* * *

Time was a tricky business.  Every day, hour, and minute so often felt to Svetlana as if it was passing excruciatingly slowly, like she was stuck in quicksand, never moving forward. She once dreamed about being older, smarter, stronger.  She dreamed about being able to walk away.

But that dream was like a mirage in a desert, a shimmer on the horizon that disappeared the closer she got.  

If she actually thought about it, she might have to give into that swirling black hole of hopelessness that lingered right on the corners of her reality.  Might have to face the fact that she was eighteen now, her childhood was behind her, and nothing had changed.

No, she couldn’t look too far into that chasm, or she might just decide to leap.

The days passed quickly now, each one just like the last and no reason to think that the next one would be be different.

Yevgeny was home for dinner one evening, an extremely rare occurrence, when he leaned over towards her.  Svetlana nearly jumped when he said her name - when he wasn’t home, she lived in silence, the family divide still firmly in place.

“Why don’t you ever invite Katya over any more?” he was asking her, though the words sounded more like idle chatter than anything with actual thought.  If Papa had been paying any attention to what he was saying at all, he probably would have found a better topic.  

It was a sharp slash to the heart to hear Katya’s name again; to realize that it had been over a year since she’d seen her, even from a distance.  As far as she knew, her former best friend was still in town, not going off to school like so many of their classmates had, but that was all she knew.

“I don’t know…”  she finally mumbled, realizing Papa was still waiting for an answer.  “Maybe I will,”  she said suddenly.  “For dinner, perhaps.”

“I will not have that girl in my home,”  her mother broke in.

Startled, both Svetlana and Yevgeny stared at her, and Sonya tossed her head impatiently.  “Do not tell me you two do not know.  She works at that inn with all the other trash in town.  A man can order her off the menu as easily as he can a plate of food.  She’s nothing but a whore, and I will not have her around Vadik and Larisa.”

Yevgeny stood up at Sonya’s voice rose.  “I have a...I promised Vars I would help with -”  

“Oh, stop with your excuses!”  Sonya burst out impatiently.  “Go out and drink yourself to death.  See if I care.”

Yevgeny’s shoulders slumped.  Without another word, he picked up his jacket and disappeared out the door.  

With an exasperated huff, her mother snatched a cloth off the table, dampened it, and began to scrub the evidence of their meal away.

Seeing the warning signs,  her younger brother and sister exchanged looks and quickly got up from the table, taking their plates to the sink on stealthy feet, and disappearing from the kitchen as quietly as possible, mice avoiding the gaze of a stalking cat.  Svetlana watched them with a small smile.  

The smile faded when neither Vadik nor Larisa looked at her as they passed.  She was a piece of furniture to her younger siblings, something of no import that just happened to be there.

After a few minutes of angry scouring, Sonya noticed that her oldest daughter was still sitting at the table.  “Are you not finished?”  she snapped impatiently, indicating the untouched remains of Svetlana’s meal.

“You do not have any right to say that about Katya.  She is not trash.  You don’t know anything about her,”  the words surprised Svetlana as much as they clearly surprised her mother.  She couldn’t remember the last time either of them had initiated a conversation with the other.

Sonya stared at her for a moment.  Without a word, she picked up Svetlana’s plate, taking it to the counter where she dropped it with an impatient clink.

When her mother returned to the table, her annoyance at finding Svetlana still there, waiting, was impossible to mask.  Still, she remained silent, beginning to clean the table once more.

“You could look at me.  You could say something,"  Unexpected anger rose in her chest, bubbling in her throat and flowing out of her mouth in her acidly spoken words.  

The sponge slipped a bit, Sonya’s even strokes becoming more erratic.

Abruptly, Svetlana was on her feet, shoving the chair she’d been sitting in away from her hard enough to knock it into the wall.  “You cannot just close your eyes and make me go away!”

Her mother looked up involuntarily, and Svetlana saw a strange, desperate flash of emotion in her eyes before her usual stone expression was back in place and she dropped her eyes as if her daughter hadn’t spoken at all.

“Mama,” Svetlana wanted to rage, she wanted to keep shouting, but now she couldn’t make her voice go higher than a whisper.  “Didn’t you ever love me at all?”

Sonya didn’t look up this time.  For just a second, her lips trembled before she pressed them into a familiar, thin line. The scrubbing of the already pristine table resumed.

“I would rather be dead than turn out like you,” Svetlana spat at her before she turned on her heel and slammed out of the apartment.

* * *

Svetlana was still shaking with anger several minutes after she’d left her apartment.  It was only when the relentless wind chilled her to the point where she could not longer blame her shivering on anger that she realized she’d left so fast she’d forgotten her coat.  

Still, she continued to walk, no real destination in mind.  She couldn’t go back to that mockery of a home right now.

God, at this point she didn’t know if she could ever go back there again ever.  Not that she had any choice.

Svetlana tried to force her mind away from that.  Instead, she allowed her thoughts to drift, and with the assistance of the biting cold she was sufficiently distracted until eventually, her thoughts took another disturbing turn.

What her mother had said about Katya...it could not be true.  Katya could not possibly be working at... _that place_.  

The Inn was a often discussed scandal in their small town the past few years, the headshaking and lamentations barely able to disguise the delight most of the town gossips took in dissecting the topic as frequently as possible.

The once popular tourist attraction had a formal name that Svetlana could no longer remember, but she and most of the townspeople had always just referred to it as the The Inn. Once upon a time, it had been a pretty little family style lodging with its own restaurant, a popular spot with tourists, packed what the local guides called ‘atmosphere’.  It also had been an extremely popular place for the locals to have celebratory dinners and banquets and even weddings.  If you could afford to celebrate at the Inn, you were doing well.

But when the tourists went away, the Inn struggled to stay afloat, until it finally closed down and stayed silent and dark for a few years until it was bought by a new owner.

Now Svetlana knew that owner was a notorious local man named Bohan, the same man who owned the tavern where Yevgeny drank and gambled his life away.  Bohan had gotten the Inn for a very good price, rumor had it, and it wasn’t hard to believe.  He then set about bringing it back to its former glory.  On the surface, he seemed to be successful.  The Inn was spruced up until it was as pretty as ever, doors thrown open to the public once more.

But now the locals, for the most part, refused to set foot in the place, whispering darkly under their breath whenever the establishment was brought up.  Svetlana had never really understood the gossip until recently.  There was a new kind of tourist in their town now; the kind that came looking for something that was advertised in flyers in seedy clubs and on the sides of bus stations in the bigger cities.  And inevitably, the evermore steady stream of strangers ended up at the Inn, where, it was rumored, the young women that worked there were more than accommodating.  

How could sweet Katya have ended up in a place like Bohan’s inn?  Those things were reserved for the unloved and unwanted, like Svetlana.  Not someone like Katya, with her big laugh and her sunny disposition and her doting mother.  No, it could not be true.

Svetlana’s cell phone rang then, making her jump - she’d forgotten that it was in her pants pocket.

It was her father.  “Svetlana,” he said, and his voice held the drunken shakiness it always held when he was about to ask her for a particularly repellent favor.  “I have made a...there is something I need you to do.  I am so sorry, but I got into a little bit of a spot - ”

She sighed loudly, cutting him off, “Who and where?”  

It was like fate was pulling her in one direction when he told her -  it was a guest at the Inn that he'd undoubtedly lost a game of billiards too, or some stupid bet.  She took the room number and stalked off, the anger from her encounter with her mother reaching for this new rage and joining forces until she gnashed her teeth together with the urge to scream it out.

But there was not much time to indulge her feelings before she arrived at her destination.  At least the man her father had sent her to was average, boring, easy to please...her favorite type.  He finished quickly and sent her on her way.

Svetlana was passing by a room a few doors down from where she’d just emerged when the door opened, and amid loud giggling Katya stumbled out, accompanied by a dark haired girl that Svetlana had seen a handful of times in town.

For a moment Svetlana was frozen, staring.  Her eyes toured the oblivious Katya, taking in every detail of her old friend, from the skimpy waitress uniform to the slightly smeared makeup, the long golden hair hanging carelessly down her back.

The two of them let the door bang shut behind them, still laughing.  Katya and her friend were quite drunk, if the way they were stumbling and clutching each other was any indication.

The seconds ticked by and Svetlana was still frozen, her stomach sinking like a stone as she looked at this stranger she once thought she knew better than herself, and then she tried to duck back, hoping they’d go the other way.

For a moment, it seemed luck would be on her side, but Katya stumbled again, yelping in pain as her ankle in its ridiculously high heel twisted and giggling even louder at the same time.  She bent down to rub it, and caught sight of Svetlana, standing up with a gasp.

“Well, well, well,”  her friend looked deeply amused.  “If it isn’t Yevgeny Baikov’s little princess.”

“I just…”  Svetlana could feel herself turning crimson, feeling both frozen and boiling in shame at the same time.  “I came here to...run an errand.”

Mia burst into loud laughter at this.  “An errand?  Is that what your father calls it?”

Mia’s mocking words hit harder than an unexpected slap. Svetlana’s breath caught.  She could feel the crimson begin to stain the surface of her skin, spreading heat throughout her face.

Katya’s face seemed to reflect some of Svetlana’s horror.  She turned to her companion, eyes sparking angrily.  “Leave her alone, Mia.”

Mia ignored her, smoothing down the wrinkles in her uniform as she smirked coldly in Svetlana’s direction. “So who did your Papa set you up with today?  Another American?  I hear they are your specialty.”

“I do not - “ The shaky stammer of Svetlana’s protest was an unfair betrayal.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

MIa began to laugh at that, loud peals of amusement that caused a passing couple to turn in surprise before they continued past.

“Mia!”  Katya hissed again.  She turned to Svetlana again and the pity on her face made Svetlana want to turn and run in the other direction.  “Sveta....you do not have to lie to us.”

It felt like the air was tightening around her, cutting off her effort to draw breath.  Svetlana tried to not to gasp in her attempt to speak again.  “I am not lying!  I am just dropping something off.”

Mia was laughing again.  “Of course.  My mistake.  The two of us, on the other hand, are here to make money.  Tourists pay well for a little girl on girl.  You may want to consider it sometime.  After all, Papa has to pay the rent.”

“Mia!”  Katya tried to break in again but Svetlana pushed past her towards Mia. The salt of humiliation stung deeply, and now anger began to push through the shame.  Who were they to judge or pity her, when they were standing there reeking of liquor and the sweat of the stranger they’d just been with?

“You do not know what you are talking about!” Svetlana snarled at her.  “I am not like either of you!”  she included them both in her derisive glare.  “I am not a whore!” .

Mia choked out another stunned, angry laugh at that, but it was Katya’s face that Svetlana locked on to.  Her former friend looked as stunned as if she’d just received the phantom blow that Svetlana had felt a few minutes before.

Then Katya’s eyes went cold.  “Yes you are, Svetlana.  Pretend all you want, but everybody knows the truth. You're a commonplace whore being peddled all over town.  The real difference between you and us is that we are getting paid for it and you are just getting fucked."  

Mia burst into another bout of mocking laughter and she took Katya’s arm, sending one more glacial look in Svetlana’s direction before the two of them turned the corner.  Katya looked back once more before they disappeared, her eyes burning into Svetlana, and then she was gone.

.

* * *

_Everybody knows._

In just the few minutes since Katya’s slashing words, the world had changed.  Svetlana had spent the last few years with her ears and eyes had been closed so long she’d developed a protective type of tunnel vision.  She kept her eyes on what was directly before her - she didn’t look to the sides.  She did not look too far ahead.

And now it seemed ridiculous, the belief that she’d clung to for so long, that if she didn’t look at the people around her, if she didn’t see them, they couldn’t see her either.

Now she could not pretend any longer.

All this time that she tried to hide her shame in corners and dark alleys, creeping down back staircases, everyone knew.

And they did _nothing_.  

Svetlana was nearly running by the time she reached her family’s apartment.  When she burst through the door she found Yevgeny on the couch, sorting through a stack of mail.

“How much did that American give you to send me to his room today?” she stood in front of him, hands on her hips, and waited for his reply.

Stunned, her father stared at her before he looked behind him worriedly.  She could see her mother in the kitchen, moving back and forth as she prepared dinner.

“Keep your voice down, Sveta,” he pleaded.  

“Why should I?  She knows.   _Everyone_ knows.  Don’t they, Papa?”  

Lost for words, her father shook his head, the denial more for himself.

“How much?”  she persisted.

He couldn’t look her in the eyes now as he named the figure.

“I want half,” she held out her hand.  Yevgeny’s mouth worked wordlessly for a moment.

“Whores get paid,” she bit off the words as her father blanched.

When she did not relent, did not put her hand away, he got heavily to his feet, digging in his pockets, extracting a few bills and placing them in her hand.

“That is all that is left, I promise.  The rest I had to spend, for the family…”  his voice was quavering, begging understanding that she was in no mood to give.

“Next time, you will ask for more.  And you will give me my share,”  Svetlana held him with her eyes, refusing to let him look away.

“Next time…? Sveta, there will not be - “

“Do not tell me there will not be a next time,”  she hurled the words at him, and he flinched when she struck her mark.  She turned on her heel to leave the room.  “Do not forget.  I get half of everything from now on.”

Before she exited, she looked towards the kitchen.  Sonya was standing by the table, a stack of plates held carelessly in her hands.  The stark look on her face attested to the fact that she had heard every word.  For a moment, they locked eyes.

This time, Svetlana was the first to turn away.

* * *

The envelope was sitting on her pillow when she walked into the bedroom that night.

Confused, she picked it up, gasping when she opened it to reveal the bills inside.  It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it was more money than her family saw in a typical week.  It had to have been carefully saved for a long time.

Her first thought was that it was Papa.  It had to be.   Then she pulled out the torn piece of notepaper, gasping again when she saw her mother’s handwriting.

_Svetlana,_

_A long time ago, I lost my chance to get away.  You still have that chance.  Maybe this will help._

Svetlana sat on the bed and and stared at the paper, reading it over and over again, until her back and shoulders began to ache and she realized how long she’d been sitting there. Then she retrieved the wooden box from underneath her bed, putting the money inside of it, her mother’s note on top of that.

When she set it down, the scrap of paper that Irene had written her address on so long ago fell out onto the bed.  Svetlana picked it up, and for the first time in years, the gray that she’d lived in for so long was pierced by one golden ray of hope.

 _St. Petersburg._  It wasn’t the whole world, but it would be a good place to start.

But first, there was one more thing she had to do.

* * *

Katya was standing outside of Bohan’s tavern, smoking a cigarette, when Svetlana walked up. Her heart sank when she saw that Mia with Katya, an unwelcome guard dog.

Nevertheless she took a deep breath and marched over.

Katya’s eyes widened when she saw Svetlana, and the cigarette nearly fell from her slightly open mouth before she grabbed it quickly.  At that, Mia looked around and her gaze hardened when she saw Svetlana.

“I will give you ten seconds to disappear,”  she hissed.

Svetlana ignored her, her gaze for Katya only.  “Please...can I talk to you?”

Mia began an explosive oath but Katya cut her off.  “Yes,” she said simply, looking over at her companion warningly.  “I will see you later.“  

Reluctantly, Mia stalked away, turning back once to shoot Svetlana a warning glare before she disappeared inside.

Svetlana moistened her lips, but the words wouldn’t come.  After a moment, Katya heaved a deep sigh.  “What do you want, Svetlana?”

“I am sorry,” Svetlana burst out.  “What I said...I did not mean it.  I was -”  she swallowed hard, still trying to speak, but the words were gone again.

It was another long moment of silence.  Svetlana was waiting for her to walk away, but Katya continued to stand there, watching her, expression unreadable.

“I know it was my fault that we stopped talking.  I have…”  Svetlana closed her eyes, inhaling before she was able to continue.  “I miss you every single day.  I wish we were friends again.”

Katya took a long last draw of her cigarette, blowing the smoke out into Svetlana’s face, then dropped it on the ground, stubbing it out underneath her heeled shoe.  

When she looked up again, she was smiling. “Sveta, I have always been your friend.  I have just been waiting for you to remember.”

“Oh,”  Svetlana took a deep, shuddering breath at that, and it echoed through her whole body, making her tremble.

“Sveta, are you going to _cry_?”  Katya was clearly trying for a teasing tone, but it was lost when her voice cracked and the tears that were welling in her eyes began to trickle down her face.

“I don’t need to, see?”  Svetlana managed to smile at that.  “You’ve always done the crying for both of us.”

“Idiot,”  Katya was laughing more than she was crying now, swiping at her damp cheeks before she seized Svetlana’s hand. “Come home with me,”  she pleaded.  “We haven’t talked in so long.  There is so much I want to tell you, so much I want to know too!  Yes?”

“Alright,”  Svetlana managed after a moment, blinking away the dampness behind her own eyelids before she squeezed Katya’s hand back just as tightly.

* * *

When Katya ushered Svetlana in through her front door, Svetlana was assaulted with years worth of memories.  The house that Katya and her mother had shared with Katya’s great uncle was one of the largest in the small town.  Svetlana remembered being deeply jealous when Katya had moved in.  It had seemed so grand to her then.  It was still overwhelming now.

When she got inside though, and could take a closer look, Svetlana realized that it looked much shabbier than she remembered.  A great deal of the fancier furniture was gone, the wallpaper was peeling on more than one wall, and water stains trailed down the corner of the living room.

“The roof leaks,”  Katya explained, indicated the cut away carpet on that section of the floor.  “We cannot afford to have it repaired.”

“But I thought that your great-uncle left your mother all of his money when he passed away last year,”  Svetlana said, confused.

Katya sighed.  “You have met my older brother, right?”  her face was stormy now.

Svetlana nodded, remembering Katya’s brother, who was just a few years older than the two of them.

“What Vasily couldn’t wheedle out of our mother, he just stole,”  Katya explained.  “Mama just let him.  She could never stand to say no to him.  And now she is sick.  It turns out that Uncle Boris’s heart condition is genetic.  It’s too bad it didn’t get Vasily instead - of course he’d need a heart to have one go bad, I suppose.”

Svetlana sucked in a breath.  “I am so sorry.  I did not know.”  

Katya lifted her shoulders.  Before she could say anything else, they were interrupted by a voice from the kitchen.  “Katya, is that you?”

“Coming, Mama!”  Katya called back.  “You will not believe who I have with me!”

When they walked into the kitchen, Mrs. Polzin stood up abruptly from her seat at the kitchen table, her eyes wide.  “Svetlana Baikov!  My goodness; it’s been a long time!"

After she reached over to embrace Svetlana, she stood back, beaming, but Svetlana couldn’t help but notice how gaunt the once robust woman looked.    

“Do you want me to fix you something to eat?” Mrs, Polzin continued to beam at the two of them, and Svetlana was seized with an urge to push her back into her seat and wrap her in a blanket before those circles underneath her eyes got any bigger.

Katya was already stopping her mother.  “No, no, Svetlana and I want some to catch up.  We will be upstairs.  I promise I will come down later and help you with dinner.”

“You will stay, right?”  Mrs. Polizin looked at Svetlana hopefully, her smile so reminiscent of her daughter’s.

“Yes,”  Svetlana could barely speak past the lump in her throat but she managed to nod and smile anyway.  

“Oh, Mama,”  Katya stopped and reached into her pocket.  She pressed a roll of bills into her mother’s hand.  “For your medicine.  Don’t let Vasily know.”

“But...Katya, how did you…?”  Mrs. Polzin’s expression changed to disbelief as she stared at the money.

Katya smiled jovially, but didn’t answer.  “We’ll be upstairs,”  With that she dragged Svetlana out of the room.

Halfway up the stairs, Svetlana turned back.  “She doesn’t know?”  she bit her lip, wondering how to continue.  “About...the Inn, I mean?”

“Of course she does,”  Katya shrugged.  “This is just the game we play.  It makes her feel better.”

They entered Katya’s room, sending another blinding wave of nostalgia Svetlana’s way.  Katya immediately pulled open a cabinet next to her bed and presented a bottle of vodka with a flourish.  “Tada!”  she tossed the bottle to Svetlana.  

Svetlana stared at it warily.  

“Come on now, it won’t bite,”  Katya encouraged.  She waited until Svetlana lifted the bottle to her lips and took a healthy swallow.  “Good! Now, speaking of work, I have a great idea,” she gestured and Svetlana tossed the bottle back to her.  “I am supposed to go see old man Grankin tomorrow night.  He wants me to bring another girl.  I was going to ask Mia but I would rather bring you.  It is easy money and we will split it.  What do you think?”

Svetlana was silent.  After a moment, Katya reached over, squeezing her hand.  “It is not so bad.  He mostly just watches.  At the end he will pick one of us to finish him off but he's quick.  I always sing in my head. I have never gotten past the first verse,”  they both burst into giggles at that.

After a moment, Svetlana sobered.  “Katya…”  she began, and hesitated.

Katya looked confused for a moment before she broke into an understanding smile.  “You've never been with a girl before, have you?  Don’t worry, it is easier than men.  I will teach you.  Actually, if you tell him its your first time and you are shy I bet he will pay us double.”

“But I... I do not to be a…”  Svetlana closed her eyes, willing herself not to say it, but the darkening of Katya’s expression told her it was too late.

“Sveta, I thought that we were past that,” her face gentled at Svetlana’s stricken look.  “It is not your fault.  Your father…”  Katya’s face hardened.  “You have to do something, Svetlana.  You cannot keep letting him use you to pay off his debts,”  she moved closer, taking Svetlana’s hands.  “Be honest.  Will he ever stop doing this to you?  As long as you are dependent on him?”

It still felt so strange, after so many years of lying and pretending, to talk about what her father had been forcing her to do so casually.

Finally, Svetlana shook her head.  “No.”

“Of course not,”  Katya’s voice was full of bitterness now.  “And no one here in this miserable place will ever let you forget.  Not me either.  It is always easier to blame us then their husbands or their sons.  But why should we walk around with our heads down?  We didn't make the world the way it is.  We are just trying to live in it.”

Svetlana sat forward, perched on the edge of Katya’s bed.  The liquor was making her head spin, loosening her tongue.  “How did this happen, Katya?  How did you get into this?”

Katya’s smile faded slightly.  “I already told you.  Vasily took everything.  There was no money left for me to go to school, not that I could have left Mama anyway.  I tried to get jobs to help support her, but every single one had some creepy man chasing me around a desk, always acting if I should service them in gratitude for the chicken feed they paid me.  Then I met Mia and she told me about working at the Inn.  It just seemed...easy,”  she sighed.  

“Easy,”  Svetlana said doubtfully.  ‘Easy’ was not exactly the word she would have chosen.

“Svetlana,”  Katya’s eyes were fastened on her.  “I did what I felt like i had to do. You know what this place is like.  No one forgets.  No one forgives.  We’ll never be more to anyone around here then what we are right now. I just want to get out of here.  Don’t you?”

Svetlana thought again of her mother’s note, the cash in the envelope.

“We need money,” she looked up at Katya.  “I have some, but not nearly enough.  But if the two of us work and put together what we earn, it will be that much faster.  We can go to my aunt’s companion, Irene, in St. Petersburg.  She’d let us stay for a while, I know she would.”

Katya’s face was filled with a sudden brightness that illuminated the room.  “Yes!  Sveta, we can do this!  No one will know us there.  We will go to school like other girls our age, and we will be just like everyone else.  Your father will never be able to hurt you again.  And we will be together, just like we always planned.”

The hope slowly unfurling in Svetlana’s chest was such a physical, foreign presence that it was nearly painful, until she thought of something that brought it to a jarring halt.

“What about your mother? You said you couldn’t leave her before.  How has that changed?”

Katya took a deep shuddering breath at that, and Svetlana immediately regretted her words when she saw the unfiltered pain in her friend’s eyes.

“She knows I have to leave.  She wants me to,”  Katya was fighting tears once more.  “I’ve asked her to come with me so many times, but she won’t leave Vasily, or this place.  It is her home,”  she blinked.  “I can’t stay here anymore, Sveta.  I’ll grow old still on my knees.  So will you.  We have to get out while we still can,” she reached for the bottle, taking a long drink.  “All we have to do is earn as much as we can for the next few months and then we can put this all behind us.  I will talk to Bohan for you if you want, get you a job at the inn. He can always use another pretty girl,”  she looked at Svetlana expectantly, waiting.

“Yes,”  Svetlana’s heart was pounding in her chest.  She took the bottle that Katya was passing back to her and took another deep swallow, letting the liquid burn through her. “Talk to him.  The sooner the better.”

* * *

And just like that, everything changed.

There was no more tentative dipping into the sex for sale department at her father’s behest.  Holding on to Katya’s hand, Svetlana had taken a deep breath and plunged in. True to her word, Katya got Svetlana a job at the Inn within a few days of their reunion.

“We really are waitresses,” Katya explained to her the first night.  “Some of the people who come in here are real tourists - they don’t know about the after dinner specials,”  she giggled at that.  “But the others...well, if they see something they like, they will circle the name of the one they want on their receipt.  The host charges their card and tells us what time and what room. We get our cut at the end of each night, and any tips they give us we get to keep.  Understand?”

Svetlana wasn’t sure that she did, but she nodded anyway.

It didn’t take her long to catch on.  Katya was a good example to learn from; she was easily the Inn’s most popular.  Following in her stead, Svetlana soon found herself with more ‘customers’ than she would have believed she could handle.  If it hadn’t been for Katya’s near constant presence and reminders of what they were working towards, she didn’t think she would have been able to keep it up.

She hated the endless parade of strangers’ hands all over her body, hating having to pretend she liked the way they touched her, catering to their often twisted fantasies, spending a night on her knees in front of a smirking tourist only to have to smile at his wife and children as she served them breakfast the next morning.

But there was no denying that Svetlana loved it too.  She was no longer Papa’s puppet, dancing every time he pulled her strings.  She was no longer helpless, waiting to see where life would take her.  In just a few short weeks, she’d made more money than she had seen in years.  And for once, it was hers, going right into her own hands.  Katya was as fair as she’d promised to be. Whenever they made their own appointments, something Katya told her they had to be secretive about as Bohan would have been angry at being shut out, Katya split everything with Svetlana down to the last cent she was able to coax out of a customer’s pocket.

Svetlana kept the growing stack of money in her red wooden box, hiding it away underneath her bed.  But as a preventative measure, and despite Katya’s strong objections, she paid Yevgeny a portion of everything she earned.  With luck, it would keep him from arranging any more ‘jobs’ where she would see nothing of the profit.  

She never discussed outright with her father what she was doing or where the money was coming from.  He seemed content to go right back to pretending none of this was actually happening, and she was content to allow him to do so, as long as he left her alone.

* * *

The money though, even the new hope for the future, paled in comparison to what had really lit Svetlana’s darkness.  Having Katya back changed everything.  She’d been alone in the quiet gray of her life for so long that the memories of what had been like to have a best friend had faded almost completely.  Now that Svetlana had her back, the idea of life without Katya quickly became unfathomable

There was just one problem.

Katya was in love.

Dmitri was his name.  Svetlana remembered him vaguely from school; he’d been a couple of years ahead of them. It wasn’t until he started working in the Inn’s kitchen that she’d paid him any attention at all, and only because of his clear and immediate interest in her best friend.  Katya had been stunned, then immediately moonstruck, when he’d asked her out on a date.

Svetlana thought Katya was ridiculous for dreaming over a local boy, one who knew full well what Katya did for a living.  “You are the one who told me that this town never forgets, Katya,”  she told her after they’d been dating for a few weeks, and Katya’s infatuation only strengthened.  “What happens when he brings you home for dinner?  Will his mother welcome you with open arms?  What if you look across the table and his father was last night’s customer?  Have fun with him while you can, but don’t fall in love.  Save that for later, when we leave here.   You’ll find someone that will never know, will never look at you differently.”

“But he does know, Svetlana!  He knows all about me!  And he doesn’t care!  That first night, he took me to dinner and held my hand.  He was a perfect gentleman.  Oh Sveta...I am so happy!”

“And how will you continue to be happy, Katya?  When his friends start asking him how much you charge by the hour?”

Katya sighed, turning to her. “Svetlana, this doesn’t change anything between us.  You know that, don’t you?  We are still leaving.  Maybe there will just be three of us now.”

Svetlana looked away at that, not wanting Katya to read her face. Her hand balled into an involuntary fist.  “How does Dmitri feel about that?”

“Who cares how he feels?”  Katya reached out and touched her face, forcing SVetlana to look back at her.  “Do you think that I would let some boy change my plans with you?  He will come along or he will stay behind.  That’s all there is to it,”  her voice softened.  “Don’t be jealous, Sveta.  Just because I love him doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

Svetlana sighed.  There were so many things she wanted to say, so many cruel but accurate truths she could point out about Katya’s folly, but in the end, she could not stand to quash the hope in her friend’s eyes.  “I just want you to be happy, Katya.”

“That’s all I want too,” Katya smoothed the hair back from Svetlana’s face.  “I want it for both of us.  Don’t worry so much, Sveta.  This is all going to work out.  No one is going to stop us now.”

Svetlana managed to smile as Katya jumped up from the table to make her way to the doorway where Dmitri waited.  She picked up the drink that sat in front of her, tossing it back and feeling it burn, as it always did, as she watched Katya disappear.  

* * *

A few nights later, Bohan made one of his rare appearances at the Inn, coming in after the restaurant had closed for the night.  Svetlana was used to seeing him now, as she ended most evenings at the tavern along with Katya, but he usually left the management of the Inn to others in his employ.  Svetlana studied him as he gathered the staff around him. Bohan was a big man, in his forties was her best guess, darkhaired and just beginning to bald, with a strange tinge to his accent that hinted at origins that she couldn’t place.  He was in a jovial mood that night, praising them all for the brisk business that the Inn was doing, singling out Katya and Svetlana for extra praise.  “My two most popular girls!” he boomed at the assembled audience.  To Svetlana’s surprise, Katya seemed almost frightened by his attention, though she smiled and laughed along with everyone else.  Now that Svetlana thought about it, people often spoke of Bohan in hushed, cautious tones, when they dared to speak directly of him at all.  Watching the cheerful man insist that they all join him in a toast, she couldn’t help but wonder why.

After Bohan had departed, trailed by several of the underlings he always had in attendance, Svetlana and Katya went back to the dining room to help clear up.

Katya was still looking nervous.  “I’m glad that’s over,“ she murmured, almost to herself.

"Why? Bohan doesn’t seem so scary,”  Svetlana shrugged.

Katya blanched at that.  “You have to be careful of him, Sveta.  Bohan is fine when everything is going his way, but if you cross him or cost him money, it can go badly.  Very badly.”

“What do you mean?”  Svetlana moved from table and table, gathering the salt and pepper shakers while Katya picked up the condiment bottles.

Katya looked around cautiously, making sure they weren’t being eavesdropped on, before continuing.  “Do you know what he does, Svetlana?  Besides this and the tavern, I mean?”  At Svetlana’s shake of the head, she continued.  “Bohan buys and sells women.  Why do you think so many strangers and foreigners come through here and head straight for his place? He sends them all over the world.”

“Where does he get them?”  Svetlana asked, carrying her full bin to the kitchen, Katya right behind her.

“Who knows?”  Katya shrugged.  “Tricks a lot of them, probably, those stupid girls who answer ads and think they’re going to become models.  Tells them he’s going to send them off to become famous and then they end up in some whorehouse somewhere,”  she leaned forward, lowering her voice once more.  “Last year, a girl who worked here owed him money and she tried to quit before she’d paid him back.  She wanted to go to school or something like that.   Well, she disappeared.  Nobody knows for sure what happened, but we’re all pretty sure she ended up as part of his next shipment.  Like I said, be careful around Bohan.”

Svetlana shuddered at her words, nodding.

She kept what Katya had said in mind after that, being very sure to treat Bohan with deference and politeness, but she maintained her distance as well as she could.  Bohan barely seemed to notice her anyway, which was probably a blessing in disguise.  Still he was a distant, shadowy threat compared to some others.

The one that really made her nervous was Alex.  Alex was really Alexei, but he insisted on the nickname.  He was one of Bohan's more higher ranking underlings, a grim faced man in his twenties who would have probably been attractive if he ever smiled at anything other than someone's suffering.  As far as Svetlana was concerned, a man who looked like he'd slit his own mother's throat and enjoy every second of it was far more terrifying than any threat Bohan represented. In addition, the fact that he spend a good deal of time both in the States and in other countries as well made her pretty certain he was the one facilitating sales of women for Bohan.  

The problem was, when Alex was around, he did not share Bohan’s indifference towards Svetlana.  His constant watchfulness was worrisome enough, but soon it seemed like everywhere she went, there he was.  If she was at Bohan’s tavern, having a drink with Katya and the other girls, he was there.  If she was waiting tables at the Inn and collecting room keys, she found him more and more sitting in her section, quiet and cold when she took his order, but always with a demeanor of impatience.  

The unease bloomed into full fledged terror the night Svetlana left the Inn, only to find Alex following her as she headed down the the stone walkway that led away from the Inn and to the street.  It was blocked off by high walls on either side; in short, she was on her own.  Whatever was about to occur was most likely not going to be witnessed, something that Alex had undoubtedly planned.

She tried to hurry her steps, but Alex was taller and faster.  He had reached her before she could break for the road, shoving her back against the wall.

She was frozen for a few seconds as he unzipped his fly, and then she moved.  

Alex’s face when he found the knife Svetlana had begun carrying on her pressed to his throat was rather priceless.

“I’m not a job perk,” she hissed at him.  “You want to play, you pay, like everyone else.  Otherwise, you stay away from me or I will go straight to Bohan.”

It was mostly a bluff; she had no idea how Bohan would react to this, and in any case, she’d already learned the folly of owning that man a favor.  

Still, it worked. Alex’s face paled, then went red with anger.  He glared at her for a long moment before he knocked the knife away and shoved past her, going in the other direction.  

She slumped back against the stone wall, breathing a deep sigh of relief.  It wasn't long before the relief was washed away by fresh apprehension.  A man like Alex wouldn't forget this insult, and he definitely wouldn't forgive.  It was only a matter of time before he came after her again, and next time, he wouldn't underestimate her.  Just like she wouldn't underestimate him.

She had to get out of there.  Soon.

* * *

After a near sleepless night, Svetlana came to the only conclusion she could.  It was time to leave.

She and Katya were still short of their ideal amount of money, but they were close enough that Svetlana was reasonably confident that they would be alright.  There had to be more work in St. Petersburg anyway, legitimate work.  They could both get jobs and enroll in school.  She'd already been in touch with Irene, who was delighted to have them, though limited on space.  It would work for at least a while while they got on their feet.

The more Svetlana turned it over in her mind, the more right it felt.  And she knew that once she talked it over with Katya, told her what had happened with Alex, that her friend would agree.  She had to.  Svetlana could not even imagine leaving her behind.  If she had to, she'd talk to Dmitri too, beg him to come with them if that's what Katya wanted.  Anything to get them out of there, now, before the looming feeling of dread that was hanging over her like a cloud grew any stronger.

The problem was finding Katya to tell her how dire things had become.  Svetlana had called her three times as soon as it had grown late enough to not be unforgivable, and Katya had yet to call her back.  It was unusual, but not completely unheard of.  She had a vague memory that Katya had plans with Dmitri.  They were probably off somewhere fucking their brains out, though Svetlana never understand how Katya had the energy or the inclination after spending more time on her back than she did on her feet.  

When her phone calls weren’t returned, Svetlana went looking for her, far too restless to stay home and wait by the phone.  First, she went to Katya's home, where Mrs. Polzin informed her that Dmitri had picked Katya up the night before and told her mother that he wouldn't have her back until the end of the weekend.  Mrs. Polzin had no idea where they had gone.

Frustrated and more agitated than ever, Svetlana was returning to her apartment when she made up her mind that she would go to Dmitri’s house and hope against hope that his roommates might know where they had gone.

Emboldened by having decided on a course of action, Svetlana hurried into the apartment - she had never been to Dmitri's home but she was fairly certain a quick internet search would give her his address.

The first thing she saw when she walked into the apartment was her red box.  It sat on the coffee table, top tossed carelessly aside.

It was empty.

“No!”  Svetlana dashed forward to pick it up, as if the force if her desperation alone could return her missing money.

That was when her father moved forward, out if the shadows.  He was bent as if he had all the weight of the world upon him, and his face was gray and clammy.  He looked older than she had ever seen him.

She didn't care. “Give me back my money!”  her voice had risen to a scream.   “You have no right!  Give it back right now!”

“I cannot, Svetlana,” he whispered.  “It is already gone.”

She flew at him then, fists flying, striking him over and over, not even sure of the words she was screaming until finally she sagged against him, exhausted.  “I need it,” she gasped out. “It was all I had, Papa.  I needed it to get out of here.”

Yevgeny took a long shuddering breath.  “I have already made arrangements for you to go away, Sveta.”

“What?”  She pulled away from him and at the same time there was a hard knock on the door.

“Papa, tell me!  What is happening?”  Svetlana demanded, but he was already moving away from her to open the door.  

Bohan was on the other side.

She stared at him for a long moment as the realization set in, and then she was screaming once more, picking up the red box to throw it at her father.  It hit the wall behind him and broke into pieces.  “You cannot do this!  I am not your property - you cannot just sell me!”

“This is what you called me here for?”  Bohan had invited himself in, closing the door behind him.  “You are trying to unload Svetlana on me?”  he managed to look both bored and deeply amused at the same time.

Yevgeny ignored him for the moment, turning to her.  “It is for the best, Svetlana.  You can get out of here.”

She stared at her father, unable to speak for a long moment.  “For the best?”  she finally managed to choke out.  “Do you know what you are selling me into?  Do you have any idea of what you are doing at all?”

Bohan scoffed loudly.  “Who says I want her, anyway?”  he told Yevgeny.  “My overseas buyers are very specific.  They don't want your well used daughter.  They want sixteen year old blonde virgins.”

Yevgeny was the one to scorn this.  “Virgins?”  

Bohan shrugged.  “I send them the type that can fake it, at least for a while.  Anyway, if that’s all…”  he started to turn towards the door  and relief flooded Svetlana’s body.

“Stop!  Look at her!  You know my daughter,”  Yevgeny was protesting now.  “My Sveta is smart and strong.  When your weak little virgins are all used up and putting needles into their arms, she will be taking care of business.  Give her five years and she will be in charge of whatever place you send her.”

To her horror, Bohan stopped, looking at her appraisingly.  After a moment, he turned back to Yevgeny.   “You think I give a shit about any of that?  I sell them, I get paid, I forget. But she’s not a bad looker and she’s always been able to turn a healthy profit for me.  Tell you what.  Make me a deal.”

Dread nearly froze her in place once more, but Svetlana forced herself to move, creeping around the two of them while they talked.  She had just silently turned the doorknob, the front door opening just a crack, when Bohan’s hand reached out and slammed it back shut.  He shot her a smug grin before turning back to her father.

“It’s a deal then,”  he said, and with that, he palmed money into Yevgeny’s open palm.  Even through her shock, Svetlana could see the amount was insultingly low.

“How can you do this?”  she turned back to her father.  

“It’s for the best,”  Yevgeny tried to smile, but it wavered and dissolved almost immediately.  “You will be far away from here, Svetlana.  You will go to America.  You can do so much there.  You can be a big star!  And you will be away from…”  he broke off.

“From you,”  Svetlana finished.  A glacial calm had descended upon her, throwing an ever deepening haze on the truth of what was happening to her right now.

“Yes,” Yevgeny’s eyes were full of the tears he always too easily shed.  

Svetlana couldn’t even begin to form words.

She did not have much time to worry about this, as Bohan paced the room, talking on a cell phone now.  “I’ve got another one for the shipment, and one more coming in tomorrow. That’ll make an even eighteen.  We’ll do photographs and send them over tomorrow for the passports.  How long will it take?  A week?  Are you kidding me?”  Bohan muttered a few more sentences and then hung up.

Staring at him, Svetlana couldn’t ever imagine how she had so recently thought of him as jolly and nonthreatening.

Bohan, as usual, seemed completely oblivious to her feelings.  Of course he was, she realized now, hating herself for her own naivete.  It was easy to overlook someone when you didn't even consider them a person.

“Come on then,“ Bohan gestured impatiently at Svetlana.

“Wait!  You just said it would take at least a week; she does not need to go with you now!”  Yevgeny protested.

Bohan gave him a stare of pure disbelief.  “Do you really think I am going to let property that I bought and paid for just wander around on her own, trying to think of a way to disappear?  What kind of idiot do you think I am?”

Yevgeny had no more protests in him as Bohan took Svetlana’s arm firmly in his grip and opened the front door.  She did not struggle.

"Svetlana!," her father's voice stopped her before she could step over the doorway.  She turned to look at him.

His face was wet with tears.  "I will miss you so much.  Maybe you do not believe this right now, but I have always loved you, Sveta.”

A deeper level of disgust than she had ever felt before welled up in Svetlana at his words.  When he reached for her, she jerked away.

Yevgeny winced at her rejection.  “Sveta, please….”

It was then that it slammed into her.  This was really happening.  Bohan was sending her away to god knew where.  She was never going to see this place again.  She was never going to see any of them again.  Not her parents.  Not her brother and sister.  Not Irene, who was so happily awaiting her arrival.

Not Katya.

It was her father's fault.  He was twisted and weak and stupid.  She knew this; she wanted to call back the hatred she'd felt just a second again but as she looked at Papa, all she felt was the desperate need to cling to these last few seconds, to memorize his face.  For so long, he'd been all she had.  All those years ago, he turned away from his wife, the woman he loved more than anything in the world.  He'd chosen to champion her unwanted child instead.  And in doing so, he'd lost Sonya forever.  He'd lost Vadik and Larisa too; they looked at him as if he were as much of a stranger to them as Svetlana was.  Once she was gone, he would have no one.  

Svetlana stepped forward, putting her arms around him, and Yevgeny sobbed onto her shoulder.  After a few seconds, she pulled away.

Ignoring Bohan’s impatient sigh, she spoke quickly.  “Papa, if you mean it, if you ever loved me at all, do one thing for me.  Find Katya.  Tell her what has happened.  Tell her…”  she hesitated, wary of revealing Katya’s plans for escape in front of Bohan.  “Tell her to go on.  Tell her to be happy,” she waited for her father’s nod before continuing.  “And tell Mama…” she stopped again.

“Tell her what?”  Yevgeny encouraged.

Svetlana couldn’t think of anything.  

She let Bohan lead her away without another word.

* * *

The car ride couldn’t have taken more a few minutes.  Still, it was long enough for her to leave any last vestiges of innocence she had still possessed behind.  Once they reached his tavern, Bohan took her arm and steered her away when she’d automatically walked towards the front, leading her around the building to a back entrance instead.

It led to a dark corridor and a staircase leading upwards.  Svetlana could see the lights of the main hall from there, smell liquor and food and hear laughter and music, and yet the twenty feet between her and the freedom it represented might as well have been an ocean.

The feeling of dread grew worse when Bohan handed her off to a smirking Alex, who grabbed her roughly and shoved her in front of him up the stairs.  She hadn’t even realized that the tavern had a third level.

Alex unlocked the door at the top of the stairs to reveal another grimly lit hallway, ushering her down it.

She stopped short in when she saw the bored looking, unshaven man sitting on an upside down crate used as a makeshift seat, leaning against the wall.  It wasn’t him that had her attention so much as the rifle so casually resting on his lap.  An armed guard...perfect.  It was a good thing she hadn’t had time to hope for escape, because the sight of him would have killed it right then.  

The man’s completely bored expression didn’t change as Alex pushed Svetlana past him, unlocking the door he sat across from.  Without a word, he shoved her inside.  She turned back to him, the soundless plea on her lips, and Alex grinned.  “If you’d been nicer to me, I could have made this go away,”  he looked her up and down with a mocking laugh before he slammed the door behind her.  She heard the key turning in the lock, and his deliberate, mocking laughter trailing down the hallway.

Slowly, Svetlana turned away from the door to survey her surroundings.  She appeared to be in a large attic, dimly lit by the bare bulb hanging from a chain in the ceiling, dimly illuminating the bare walls and planked floor under her feet.  A few cots were shoved into corners, bare of pillows or blankets.  Another door stood open, revealing a tiny bathroom and a stench wafting from it indicating it hadn’t been cleaned in a very long time.

And she wasn’t alone.

There were about half a dozen other women.  A couple looked familiar - she’d definitely seen them down below before.  None of them looked surprised to see another stranger in their midst.  She received maybe one curious glance, before they returned to their near prone positions.  A couple laid together on a far too small cot, for warmth as well as comfort, Svetlana would guess, as there was a definite chill in the room that was only going to get worse as the sun set.  A few sat on the floor with a stack of playing cards between them, quietly arguing over a hand.  

More cots lined the far side of the room.  Svetlana did not have to count them to see there were not nearly enough for all of them.  After a few minutes of hesitation, she made her way to the furthest one in the corner and sat down.

Immediately, there was an angry snarl from one of the women, a tall redhead.  Svetlana met her eyes and stared back until the other woman dropped her head and looked away. There was a quiet chuckle from the blonde woman dealing cards.  “This one knows how to play.”

Svetlana had no interest in commentary from her reluctant companions.  She dropped back on the uncomfortable cot, staring up at the ceilings.

The shadows grew and darkened into night quickly, the lone lightbulb dangling from the corner of the ceiling not enough to light their dim surroundings.  As Svetlana had predicted, the attic did become uncomfortably cold, and the air even more stagnant and foul, especially what emitted from the bathroom every time someone swung the door back open after using it.  She found herself fantasizing about her mother’s collection of cleaning products under the sink; what she wouldn’t give right now for one bottle of it and a toilet brush. Such mundane thoughts finally lulled her to sleep.

There wasn’t much else to do over the next few days except think.  Very little else happened in the cramped quarters to distract her.  One of the guards dropped off meals for them a few times a day, usually just sandwiches and water.   She didn’t talk to any of the others much.  There didn’t seem to be any point. Most likely they were going to all be separated anyway; Svetlana had no interest in losing anyone else.

As someone who had spent a good chunk of her life trying not to think, Svetlana found this vast amount of time on her hands in which she could do nothing else more than a little unnerving.  She tried to sleep most of her time away, but the increasing agitation of her companions made for a noisy and unsettling environment.

When sleep failed her, she sat on her cot, looking up at the small window in the ceiling and the tiny bit of sky she could see.  Birds, glorious in their freedom, occasionally flew by and she longed to be one of them.

When it was dark, and she couldn't even see the birds, she thought about Papa's last words to her.  She thought about love.

What was the point of love?  Why did people bandy about the word as if it was a solution when all it really did was cause problems?  Papa loved her mother, and when Sonya couldn't love him back, it broke him.  He'd put the rest of his love into her, his violently begotten daughter, and what good had that done her?  It hadn't stopped him from selling her like an easily discarded toy.  It hadn't stopped him from destroying her.

So the truth was, love by itself was meaningless.  A promise easily given, rarely delivered on.  She vowed to herself then and there that she would never tell someone she loved them, never risk damaging them with all the promises the word implied, unless she was strong enough to back it up.

Though she couldn’t even begin to fathom any circumstances in which she’d ever even be tempted.

No, there was no more room in her new world for love.

For now, it would be enough to just survive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! We'll find Svetlana in Chicago in Chapter 3, and the fact that it's titled 'Terry' may give you a hint as to what to expect. 
> 
> I want to talk a moment to thank zebrawallpaper, without whom (see what I did there?) I would have absolutely given up on this story. Your support has meant the world, and so I'm dedicating The Russian to you.
> 
> And thank you all who have taken the time to read it and an extra special thanks to all those who have commented. It is so much appreciated!


	3. Terry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Svetlana's new life is already in upheaval when she catches the eye of Terry Milkovich.

 

_The van had blacked out windows and no seats in the back.  Svetlana sat curled up in the corner as it rocked her bruised body uncomfortably, bouncing her several inches into the air and slamming her back down every time they hit a bump or a pothole._

_She didn’t know where they were going; couldn’t bring herself to care.  If it was the end, so be it.  She was ready; a bullet to the brain and a deep hole in the dirt was all she could ask for._

_Abruptly, the van careened to a stop.  There was a few second’s of rapid fire conversation from the front seat.  A banging noise, footsteps, and then the door of the van was abruptly slid open._

_She blinked wildly in the unexpected light filtering in, but before she could get her bearings she was grabbed and dragged forward.  There was no time to get her feet under her; one last pull and she fell out of the van and onto the pavement,  landing on her hands and knees._

_The shock and pain of the fall kept her there for a long minute, trying to catch her breath.  It was only the sight of the feet coming nearer and stopping near her face that forced her to sit up, wincing with every movement.  She blinked again and Alex’s face swam into view, his ever present smirk sending one long thought diminished charge of defiance through her.  It was enough to force her to climb to her feet._

_Alex’s smirk twisted coldly.  He reached into his jacket and she waited, refusing to look away._

_He leaned forward to whisper in her ear before throwing the small stack of green bills in her face._

_And then he was gone, the van speeding away, leaving her standing there, shivering in the rising, bitter wind, his last words ringing in her ears._

_‘Welcome to America.”_

An abrupt crash brought Svetlana out of the dream, even as her bedroom plunged into sudden darkness and fresh fear rose.

She was on her feet, stumbling around and feeling along the wall frantically until her hand brushed the light switch.  The source of the crash was apparent; she’d knocked over the small lamp that she always kept on at night; it lay base upwards, caught between the battered filing cabinet it normally sat on and the bed.  The shattered remains of the lightbulb made an odd snowfall beneath it.

It still took a minute of hyper breathing before this reality solidified, allowing the dream-memory to fade.  That day, that place, Alex...it was all years behind her now.  The only time she ever revisited her first few months in America, the building where she was kept locked up, the constant stream of men, the beatings that lasted until the day her 'owner' decided she was all used up and had Alex dump her on the street, was in her dreams.  There was no point in lingering on it now.  Svetlana had long since returned to the credo that had gotten her through her younger days.  She focused only on what was in front of her.  She did not look to the side; she did not look too far ahead.  Most of all, she never, ever looked back.

The overhead light in her bedroom flickered, buzzing.  Svetlana grimaced.  There wasn’t going to be any sleeping in here for the rest of the night, she could already tell.  

 The front door rattled while Svetlana was in the tiny kitchen area, pouring herself a shot.  After a few more seconds, it burst open and one of her roommates, Arian, stumbled inside the apartment they shared, her shoulder length blonde hair a mess, eyeliner smeared, and reeking of alcohol.  Her shoes were missing, but from the glassy eyed expression, Svetlana doubted Arian was even aware of it.  

“Hi, Sveta!”  Arian stumbled forward, beaming, when she caught sight of Svetlana.

Svetlana watched her in amusement.  Arian was always entertaining when she was plotzed; a sharp contrast to her sober.  Normally, the Ukrainian woman was all business, as practical and unemotional as Svetlana herself.  It was what had drawn the two of them together.  After a chance encounter back when they both still worked the streets, they’d teamed up, figuring two were better than one.

Safer it may have been, but still not safe enough.  After they’d barely escaped a pair of knife wielding johns bent on robbery and more, Svetlana had to face facts.  It was too dangerous for them to work without protection.  

And that was how she’d found Sasha, proprietor of the Garden Springs Spa, small, unassuming massage parlor on the outside, happy ending and sucky-sucky palace on the inside.

Svetlana was shaken out of her memories by the brightening of Arian’s face when she spotted the bottle of vodka on the counter.  “Pour me a drink!”  she tried to step forward, tripped over nothing, and fell in a giggling heap on the ground.

“I think you’ve had enough,”  Svetlana spoke drily as she put the cap back on the bottle before walking over to Arian, who was still on the ground.  “Let’s get you into bed.”

“I am in bed!”  Arian insisted, rolling over to look at her before dropping back on the floor like a spread-eagled starfish, blinking happily at the ceiling.  

Svetlana sighed.  “If you say so.  You want pillow?”

She was greeted by a loud snore in response.  Shaking her head, Svetlana went to Arian’s room to fetch her a pillow and a blanket, covering the other woman where she lay.

Once that was done, she settled herself on the couch, giving up on sleep entirely, content to wait for dawn.

* * *

It had been stifling hot for days, and the multiple fans placed around the reception room at the Garden Springs Spa weren't of much help.  It was probably why business was so slow; Svetlana had been sitting at the front desk for an hour without any customers walking in.

She leafed through the magazine she held idly, flipping the pages to fan herself more than anything else.  A few feet away, crowded around another desk crammed into a dark corner sat three pale, hard faced men, arguing in Russian over a game of cards.  One of the men occasionally looked over to send Svetlana baleful looks, which she ignored.

A few feet away from her, a young, lanky black man stretched out in a chair he’d dragged over.  His head was thrown back, eyes closed.  Even as she glanced at him, he started to snore lightly.

“Excuse me, miss,”  a mock-annoyed voice sounded from the front of the desk.  “Can I get some service here please?“

Though Svetlana couldn’t see the speaker over the desk, she smiled anyway, leaning over.

Her second roommate, Dolly, was standing on the other side.  Dolly was buxom, bottle-blond, and  all of 3 ½ feet tall.   Dolly was also the only American among Sasha’s girls, though her home state of Texas and strong accent to match made her as exotic to Svetlana as Svetlana was to her.  Now that she knew Dolly better, Svetlana suspected her heavy accent was a put on that she was so used to she slipped into it naturally.  Whatever it was, it was working.  Dolly had quickly and easily become one of Sasha’s most popular girls.

Before Dolly, Svetlana had no idea that little people existed outside of the movies.  From the time the other woman had first walked through their door, almost a year ago, she’d been unable to hide her fascination, fighting back a terrible desire to pick Dolly and set her on a dresser or something so she could have a proper look at her.

When she’d confessed this later on to Dolly, her new roommate had only laughed.

“Oh honey, everyone’s like that.   At least you would ask.  Most people really do think I’m a doll or something; they just pick me up and toss me around like I don’t have any feelings at all; least til I give them a good kick,”  Dolly had giggled.  “Now, while we’re being honest with each other, I gotta tell you, your name’s pretty and all, but it twists my tongue more than my last bachelor party gig.  So I’m gonna call you Lannie, and you can like it or lump it, but that’s how it’s gonna be.”

Svetlana had instantly loathed the nickname, but it wasn’t as though Dolly had been asking for an opinion.  In the months since, it had grown on her.  Slightly.

“Lannie, hon, will you help me restock my room?”  Dolly was asking now, shuffling her feet in high heeled shoes that Svetlana was always amazed that Dolly could find in her size.  

“Of course,”  Svetlana looked over at the corner, calling the name of the man who’d been shooting her dirty looks all morning.  “Ivan, watch the desk.”

His companions snickered at this, and Ivan turned a dark angry red.  “You think you give me orders?  You are not in charge here!”  

Svetlana rolled her eyes, turning to the younger man who’d been napping in his chair.  “Damian, watch the desk.”

Damian stood up and stretched, grinning lazily.  “Sure thing...boss,”  he winked at her as Ivan grew even more puce.

Svetlana grabbed the key ring that hung from a hook above the desk and walked Dolly over to the supply room, unlocking the door and ushering the woman before her.  

“What do you need?”  she asked Dolly as they walked into the room.  Shelves lined each wall and locked cabinets were above them.

“Little bit of everything, sugar.  I wanna stock up before the vampire queen returns and docks even more of my pay for it.”

Svetlana couldn’t help but chuckle at Dolly’s cruel but accurate assessment of their employer.  Sasha was not any softer than a man in her same position.  She ate, breathed, and slept green and anyone who came between her and a steady cash flow was quickly disposed of.

Nevertheless, though Sasha was mercenary and brutal when she needed to be, she ran a clean operation.  She even provided a roof over their heads; the first floor of the Garden Springs Spa contained the myriad of massage rooms and booths where they attended to their customers.  The upstairs was divided into a few small apartments, parceled out between her girls.  It was the most stability Svetlana had had since that day Bohan had taken her from her home.

“Hold this,”  Svetlana passed an empty basket from the counter to Dolly.  She unlocked cupboards, passing Dolly boxes of tissues, bottles of lubricant and hand sanitizer before moving onto boxes of condoms and baby wipes.  She threw in a couple of packs of batteries for good measure.

“Thanks darlin’!”  Dolly waved and disappeared with her basket, just as the front door opened and Sasha walked in, weighed down by shopping bags.

Before Svetlana could return to greet her, Ivan was on his feet complaining loudly in Russian.

“This bitch thinks she owns the place!”  he pointed angrily at Svetlana.  “ _I_  am your brother! Tries to give me orders; who does she think she is?  And she was on the phone with your suppliers, interfering in your business!”

“Were you now?”  Sasha tossed her shopping bags behind the desk, turning to Svetlana.  “You talked to the man about the shipment he wants to send me?  What did you tell him?”

Svetlana shrugged.  “Told him you did not want his radioactive pussy.  Besides, the place over on Halsted got raided and closed last week.  We can get cream of the crop easy.  No import fees.  I already have two coming in for you to look over.”

“Good,”  Sasha smiled widely, and Svetlana didn’t miss the amused gleam in her eyes as Ivan fumed.   “I see you have Raisa trying to bring in business,”  she gestured out the window, where they could see one of Sasha’s newer girls hustling up and down the sidewalk, handing out cards to every man who came walking by, trying to coax them inside.  The sweat was pouring down her scarlet face and even as they watched, she turned towards the window and shot them a furious look.

“She was late,”  Svetlana shrugged.  “Also, I don’t like her.”

Sasha snorted at that as she tossed her purse on the desk and began to read through the written messages that Svetlana had left for her.

The door chime tinkled, and a sunburned, middle aged man in bermuda shorts and a polo short, fanny pack on his waist completing the picture, came sidling in, looking around nervously.  When he caught sight of them he flushed even redder.  “I - uh, maybe...I might be in the wrong place.”

“Time to get to work,”  Sasha inclined her head towards the man but Svetlana was already on the move.

“Is OK,”  she told the man, taking his sweaty hand.  “You are tourist, yes?  Wife and children sightseeing?  You just need break.  I help you relax.”

“Well,”  the man looked spellbound as he watched her tracing a pattern on his palm with her crimson nail.  “I only have a few minutes…”

“Is enough,”  Svetlana pulled on his hand and he followed easily.  “See, you come to right place after all.”

* * *

After a long, uneventful day, Svetlana was more than happy to return upstairs to her apartment, no matter that it was even more stifling upstairs than it had been down below.  It was also abnormally quiet; neither Dolly nor Arian had returned yet.

After Svetlana had thrown open every window and turned on the rotating fan in the living room, desperate to coax in a breeze somehow, she took advantage of having the bathroom to herself for once.  After downing a couple of shots of vodka and popping a Valium, the prescription for which she'd blackmailed out of a doctor that used to visit her regularly, she took a cool shower.

Dolly found her in there some time later, standing in the doorway as Svetlana stared at herself in the mirror above the sink.

“You about done in here? I need a shower before I melt.”

Svetlana didn’t turn away from the bathroom mirror,  touching her reflection in the mirror.  “Now I look like her,”  she murmured.

“Who?”  Dolly asked, and she realized belatedly she’d spoken aloud.

“Sonya,” Svetlana admitted after a moment.  “My mother.”  It was true, she could see that as she continued to study her own reflection.  It still took her by surprise sometimes, when she caught an unexpected glimpse of herself and saw the resemblance.  Other times she felt Sonya so strongly within her she feared the day she wiped the steam from the mirror only to be confronted with her mother’s face.

“Honey, are you drunk?  You only talk about your parents when you’re drunk,”  Dolly leaned against the doorway.

“Oh,” Svetlana was still speaking to her Sonya/Svetlana reflection.  “Yes,” she admitted after a moment.

Dolly shook her head.  “Betcha didn’t eat anything before you started drinking,”  she grimaced at Svetlana’s guilty expression.  “For a smart girl, you sure are dumb sometimes.  Get your ass out here and let me make you something to eat,”  she gestured with her chin towards the kitchen, waiting impatiently until Svetlana followed her.

A few minutes of bustling around the kitchen, and Dolly presented Svetlana with a neatly sliced sandwich on a plate, setting it down on the rickety coffee table, and then climbing on to the couch next her.  “Now eat all of that.  I don’t want to peel you off the floor later like we do with Arian every other night.”

Svetlana smiled slightly and obeyed.  When she only had the crust to pick at, she noticed Dolly watching her steadily.  “You really don’t ever talk about any of it.  Like your parents, where you come from.”

Svetlana shrugged.  “No point.  Another life.”

“Moment’s passed, huh?”  Dolly reached over to snag the last bit of crust.  “I shoulda struck while the iron was hot; now you’re closed up tighter than a pack of Republicans considering the national budget.  It’s just I get curious sometimes.”

“You don’t either,”  Svetlana pointed out.  “Talk about it, I mean.  Where you come from.  Your family.”

“Oh,”  Dolly grimaced.  “Not much to tell, hon.  Grew up in a sweet as apple pie small town with a family that was so ordinary they would have bought stock in Normal if it was a company,” she shifted on the couch.  “Thing is, I wasn’t normal.  Couldn’t tell Mom and Dad that though; they were sure if they said I was like everyone else often enough it would magically be true.   They’d wake up some morning and I’d be that average 5”4 cheerleader they always wanted.  I guess I used to hope for that too.  When I finally figured out that it wasn’t gonna happen, I went off the rails a bit.  Lots of drugs, lots of men.  When my parents found a copy of a blue movie I made for a thousand bucks and a bottle of whiskey, that was it.  Tough love is what they called it when they stopped paying my college tuition and changed their phone number.”

“What is a blue movie?  Like porno?”  Svetlana questioned.

Dolly grinned.  “Lord of the Rings parody.  It was called ‘The Hobbit’s Hole’.”

Svetlana stared at her for a moment, not entirely convinced Dolly wasn’t fucking with her, before they both started to laugh.  

“Sorry about your parents,”  Svetlana said at last when they’d calmed down.

Dolly sighed  “Nothing crushes a soul faster than being a constant disappointment to the ones you love the most.”

Svetlana flinched at that, hearing the ghost of Yevgeny’s words to her so long ago being born again from Dolly’s lips.

Dolly saw her expression and smiled sympathetically.  “Sorry about your parents too.  Don’t need to know the details to know it wasn’t good.  Why else would you be here?”  She didn’t wait for an answer, just scooted to the end of the couch then hopped down.  

Svetlana stared at the empty space Dolly left behind, willing her mind to be just as empty, but the memories were coming closer and closer.  Finally, she gave up and went to get another drink, letting the alcohol burn until it all faded away once more.

* * *

The next day was as hot, sticky, and as slow as the day before.  Eventually, even conversation fell by the wayside, everyone succumbing to the drone of indifference.  The torpor was barely broken by a few lunch-break customers.

When the next man walked through the door, it was only Sasha’s flash of shock, mixed with something else Svetlana couldn’t put her finger on, that alerted her that there was something different about this one.

Whatever it was, it was gone a second later as Sasha got to her feet to greet the customer.  “Terry Milkovich!”  she exclaimed.  Her smile looked frozen on to her face.  “It has been a long time!”

The man she was speaking to was middle-aged, tall and broadly built, the muscles in his arms well defined by the loose, sleeveless plaid shirt he was wearing.  Svetlana studied him carefully,  curious what it was about this grimy stranger,  who looked like the type of customer who had trouble paying in full and would bargain for a discount, that was making Sasha jump to attention.

“Been in the clink,”  the man was shrugging. “But I’m out now!”

“And looking for a good time, yes?”  Sasha’s smile was even more brittle now.

“You know it!  Got blue balls the size of Rhode Island,”  The man named Terry was smirking widely, eyes sweeping over the various women.  “Looks like you got a new crop here.”

“I keep it fresh,”  Sasha shrugged before she waved her arm around the room.  “Take your pick.”  

“Hmmm…”  Terry was strolling back and forth, strutting like a cock on display.  Most of the women he surveyed looked away quickly, his harsh gaze seeming to shrink even the toughest.

When his eyes lit on Svetlana, she stared back at him.  They kept eye contact for a long moment, his eyes assessing her coolly before he turned back to Sasha.  “Give me the Russian.”

Sasha rolled her eyes.  “They are all Russian, Terry,”  she ignored the indignant stares of both Dolly and Arian at that.

“No,”  Terry pointed at Svetlana.  “ _That_ is the Russian.  Right there.  The real deal.  I want her.”

Sasha followed his gaze to Svetlana.  “A little old for you, isn’t she?”  she chuckled drily.  For just a second, Svetlana thought she saw something that looked strangely like concern in her expression before it was gone and Sasha was implacable once more.  “Svetlana, see to our Mr. Milkovich.”

Svetlana moved forward and took Terry’s big hand in her own, noting the crudely drawn knuckle tattoos as she did so.  His fingernails were filthy.  Nevertheless, she smiled widely, copying Sasha’s deferential attitude as she led him to her massage room.

Build-up aside, the ensuing encounter wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.  Terry was not content with a blow job.  He wanted the full ride.  He was a bit rough, but nothing she hadn’t experienced before, and he was quick.  At the end, he surprised her by not dickering over the going rate.  Instead, he slapped the bills on the table and then shoved another one into her hand.  “That’s for you,” he said gruffly.  “You don’t give that greedy bitch a cent of it, do you hear me?”

“Thank you,”  she said simply, tucking it into her cleavage, nodding and smiling though she had no intention of holding out on Sasha.  There had been one girl who’d made a regular habit of that, several months back.  When Sasha caught her, she’d had Ivan break the girl’s fingers, one at a time, and forced all of them to watch.  Svetlana liked her fingers just the way they were.

“You’re a tough one, aren’t you?”  Terry grinned at her.  “I like that.  I’m gonna be seeing you again.  Count on it.”

She wouldn’t; she’d heard it too many times before, but still, she smiled amiably and walked him to the door before delivering his fee to Sasha.

To her surprise, Terry Milkovich was true to his word.  He came in at least once a week after that, sometimes twice, and he always asked for her.  After a while, some of the girls began to tease her about having a boyfriend.  She ignored the jabs, knowing they were mostly motivated by jealousy.  Regulars were prized in this business.  Terry may have been crude and boring, tending to spend most of their sessions bragging about his prowess or going on long, prideful rants about his Ukrainian heritage despite the fact that he had never been there, knew next to nothing about Ukrainian history or culture, and didn’t speak the language either.  Still, he always paid in full and tipped well.  As far as customers went, he was far from her worse.

A few weeks after she’d first met Terry Milkovich, she was back at the desk, filling in for Sasha once more.  It had been a quiet morning, and she’d spent more time filing her nails and flipping through magazines then she had anything else.  

The chime of the front door bells didn’t even have her looking up.  She heard a stuttering, familiarly accented voice ask in barely intelligible English if she could see Sasha.

“Not here,”  she heard Damian tell her.  “Go check in at the front desk.  Lannie will take care of you.”

Svetlana glowered at that.  No one was allowed to call her Lannie except Dolly.  Rolling her eyes, she turned the page of the magazine impatiently.  

“Excuse,”  a timid voice interrupted, still speaking in broken English.

She didn’t even bother to look up.  “This is not school and we don’t give out gold stars for effort.  Speak the language you actually know,”  she snapped in Russian.  

There was an intake of breath, but no answer.  Impatiently, she looked up, and the sight before her made her eyes widen.  The blonde woman in front of her was tall, so tall that her head could brush the lights swinging from the ceiling.  She was painfully emaciated; Svetlana could count every single one of her ribs as they showed through the tight red dress that still managed to hang on her.  Her hair was a ratted mess, her cheap high heels were scuffed, and her nail polish was picked or bitten off in large chunks.  There were sores around her mouth.

It was Katya.

Svetlana just sat there, frozen, unable to speak.  

“Sveta?”  Katya finally broke the silence.  “Sveta, is that really you?”  her voice cracked.

“Katya!”  She was up then, racing around the desk.  Katya met her halfway, throwing her arms around her.  She held onto Svetlana tightly, and Svetlana couldn’t tell which one of them was shaking harder.

“I have been looking for so long!”  Katya was sobbing into the top of her head.

“But how - “  Svetlana struggled to get the words out.

“What the fuck is _this_ and why is it here?”  Sasha’s impatient voice broke in.  Svetlana pulled back from Katya to see her boss had returned, and she was standing a foot away, hands on her hips, taking in the scene before her.

Svetlana tried to wipe away her smile that kept falling apart anyway due to her trembling lips, but she couldn’t, and she was too elated to bother.  “This is Katya!”  she announced.  “We grew up together!  I never thought I’d see her again!”

“Touching,”  Sasha looked heavenward.  “What the fuck is your giant Barbie doll doing in my place of business?”

“I -”  Katya looked at Sasha nervously.  “You are Sasha?  Someone gave me this address.  I was hoping you might know of Svetlana...”  she beamed.  “Also, I hear you might need more girls?”  her voice raised hopefully.

Sasha scoffed loudly.  “No one wants to fuck a junkie who looks like she sleeps in alleys and sucks off hobos for a Big Mac,”  Sasha shook her head.  “Get her out of here, Svetlana.  Now.”

Svetlana’s head whipped around as Katya’s face fell, and color rushed into her pallor.  Without wanting to allow it, Svetlana’s eyes dropped to Katya’s arms, seeing the angry red marks that marked her skin.

Katya snatched her arms away, tucking them behind her back, but it was too late.  Svetlana had already seen.  She shook off her horror for now; time for that later.  Right now she had to deal with Sasha.

“Wait!”  Svetlana stepped in Sasha's path.  “Please.  Give her a chance.  I can help her.  She’s a beautiful girl; let me get her cleaned up and something to eat and a few days to rest.  You will see, I promise!”

“Svetlana,”  Sasha spoke as if Katya wasn’t even there.  “You are asking for trouble.  You can not get a mess like this cleaned up in the shower.   You are doing well here.  Do not fuck up things for yourself, and more importantly, do not fuck things up for _me_.”

“I - “  Katya tried to step back.  Her face was still red, her damp eyes touring over the curious onlookers.  “Maybe I should go -”

Svetlana tightened her grasp on Katya’s hand, refusing to let her pull away.  “If Katya goes, I go with her,”  Svetlana did not look away from Sasha.

“This is a threat?  You think you are so special?  Your pussy is not gold-plated; you are very replaceable,”  Sasha bit out.

Svetlana refused to drop her eyes, waiting.  After a minute, Sasha sighed.  “If you are so determined, then you are responsible for her.  Until she can work, you pay her fees.  That means you double your customers, and the extra all goes to me,”  she waited for Svetlana to flinch at that.  When Svetlana didn’t, she continued.  “Your girl has two weeks to get her shit together, and then she either puts up or both of you are out.  Do you understand?”

“Yes,”  Svetlana nearly sagged against the desk in relief.  “Can I take the rest of the day off to get her settled?”

“You think me losing money from you not being available is going to make me like this arrangement any better?”  

“Two hours,”  Svetlana pleaded.  “I will be back downstairs before the evening rush.”

“You’d better,”  Sasha’s voice was ice.

Svetlana hurried Katya out of the waiting room and up the back staircase of the second floor before Sasha had a chance to rethink.  Her joy at Katya’s unexpected appearance was tempered by her alarm when her old friend swayed on her feet more than once, barely able to navigate the steep staircase.

So busy focusing on Katya, Svetlana barely noticed that Arian and Dolly had followed them upstairs.  Everything felt so unreal; even as she felt Katya’s hand gripping hers just as tightly back,  she was terrified she was going to wake up at any second, alone, Katya just a memory that burned too bright for her to think on for any length of time.

“How did you get here, Katya?”  the words tumbled out, desperate to know, to make this new reality set in.

“Bohan,”  Katya said simply as they reached their door.

At the sound of his name, Svetlana dropped her keys, turning back to Katya with a gasp.  “That bastard -”

Katya was already shaking her head.  “No, it’s not like that.  I asked him to send me here.”

“I don’t understand,”  Svetlana shook her head.  None of this was making any sense.  

“Talk about it inside,”  Arian broke in, looking less than pleased.  She held out Svetlana’s keys before gesturing impatiently to the now unlocked door.

Once they were inside, Svetlana got Katya settled on the couch, glad to see her sit down before she fell down.  She still had so many questions, so much she needed to know, and it was only the strain on Katya’s face that was stopping her from bombarding her old friend with all of them.

“So,”  Dolly broke the silence after a few seconds.  “You’re gonna be living with us?”

Katya merely looked confused at Dolly’s question before she glanced back at Svetlana.

“She doesn’t understand you,”  Svetlana told Dolly.  “Yes, she will be living with us.”

Arian made an angry sound at that and Svetlana glared at her.  Undeterred, Arian glared fiercely back.  “I don’t want her here.  Sasha is right.   This is a huge mistake you are making, and you are going to make all of us suffer while you do it.”

“Hey now,”  Dolly held up her hands when Svetlana began to retort angrily.  “No fighting!  Sasha’s gonna be watching all of us, waiting for a problem.  Let’s not give her any excuses.  I don’t want to be out on my ass with you two if this doesn’t work out.”

“Fine,”  Arian looked even more furious.  “Have it your way.  Tell your crackwhore if anything of mine goes missing, I’ll throw her out myself.  And I suggest you lock up your own stuff while you’re at it.”

“She would never -” Svetlana protested, hoping Katya truly could not understand what they were saying.

Arian’s angry expression began to fade, transforming into a mix of consternation and pity as she studied Svetlana’s expression.  “She is an addict,” she said flatly.  “Don't fool yourself,”  she shook her head one last time before she turned and left the apartment.

Dolly looked like she wanted to follow Arian, but after a moment she just sighed.  "Alright, Lannie, I'm sure you want to catch up with your friend, but I can't stand the stench anymore.  First thing we need to do is get your girl into a bath," she stepped forward towards Katya, who was gazing at her in fascination.  Even though Katya was seated, Dolly still had to stand on tiptoes as she fingered a lock of Katya’s matted hair.  Dolly wrinkled her nose and sighed again.  "This is going to take a while."

Katya was cooperative enough when Dolly and Svetlana coaxed her into a hot bath, even when they took a comb to her tangled locks, wincing but uncomplaining as the comb tore through her snarls.  She was too weak to help much, and Svetlana couldn't help but flinch at every uncovered bruise and needle mark that marred Katya’s skin.    

After they'd emptied and refilled the tub twice and washed her hair repeatedly, Katya was finally deemed clean enough.  Dolly ran from the bathroom to fetch a clean sheet and in lieu of anything else, they wrapped Katya in that and set her on the couch to dry.

Despite the heat, Katya was still shivering as she wrapped the sheet more tightly around her.  Dolly clucked her tongue, her earlier reticence melted away as she studied the shivering blonde.  "You need a good meal and a lot of rest and you'll be right as rain, " she reassured the two of them.  

"Lannie,” Dolly continued, “Why don’t you make her something to eat, and I'm going to take her clothes to the laundry,” she picked up Katya’s grimy red dress and shuddered visibly, “Or the incinerator, I haven't decided yet.  Then I’ll see if I can scare her up something to wear in the meantime," she patted Katya’s knee gently.  “This all you got, honey?”

After Svetlana translated the question, Katya nodded.  “I have this,” she indicated the dirty backpack that had been tossed on the floor.  “A few things in there.  Most of my things were stolen a few nights ago.”

"Well, that’s the pits,”  Dolly nodded sympathetically after Svetlana explained.  “You don’t look like much easier of a size to fit than I am, but we'll figure something out."

Though Katya couldn’t understand what Dolly was saying, she seemed reassured by the tiny woman’s friendly tone.  She smiled as Dolly disappeared through the front door.

"Katya,  what happened? Why are you here?"  Svetlana took Katya’s cold hands in hers as she spoke, but it didn’t stop the smile from immediately disappearing.

Katya pulled her hands back and looked away, eyes drifting towards the window.

“What happened to Dmitri?  Didn’t you leave together?”  Svetlana tried again.  

“I don’t want to talk about Dmitri!”  Katya burst out, eyes snapping.  

Svetlana blinked, flinching back from Katya’s sudden anger.  After a moment, Katya’s expression calmed.

“Mama died,”  she said softly.  “The year after you...left.  It made things hard.”

“I’m sorry,”  Svetlana reached for her hand again and this time Katya gave it to her.  

“I have a son now though!”  Katya smiled.  “Nicolai! He is so beautiful, Sveta.  I wish you could see him.”

“A son?”  Svetlana’s head was spinning, trying to keep up.  “Here?”

“No,”  Katya’s eyes clouded again.  “He is back home, with his grandparents.  And his father,”  she bit off the word father harshly.

“But why...you left him?”  Svetlana stared at her old friend, who was looking more like a stranger than ever.  “How could you do that?”

“Don’t say that!”  Katya sat up, yanking herself away from Svetlana.  “Don’t talk to me like you’re one of _them_.  I did not want to leave him. It was never my choice!”

“Katya,”  Svetlana held up her hands beseechingly.  “I am just trying to understand.  Tell me what happened.”

Katya was looking away again.  “A lot of things,” her voice was distant once more.  “But it will be alright now.  Now that we’ve found each other again, it will be just like it was before.  And once I’ve made enough money here, I will go back for him.  They have to give him to me.  I’m his mother.  He belongs with me,”  her smile was a glassy caricature of the smile Svetlana remembered, false and transparent.  After a few seconds she leaned back on the couch, her eyelids drooping.

Svetlana moved closer, looking at her again, taking in the prominent cheekbones and and the tremors that were still rocking her, before dropping reluctantly to the angry red marks on Katya’s arms once again.  “What have you been doing to yourself?”  she whispered.

If Katya heard her, she made no sign.

It was beyond agonizing to have to leave after the agreed upon two hours, but she forced herself to do so.  Aggravating Sasha now would be a huge mistake. By the time Svetlana returned to the apartment after a few slow-passing hours downstairs, trying to make Sasha’s nearly impossible quota, it was full of chattering women from the other apartments, music was blaring, and there was all the indications that a good party was in the works.  As word about the newcomer spread, their door was knocked on so often that Svetlana finally just gave up and left it open.  

Katya had been sitting on the floor with Dolly when Svetlana walked in, dressed in a pair of men’s sweats that had come from who knew where.   Dolly was talking a mile a minute, occasionally assisted by a yelled translation from someone walking by.  Though Katya was smiling, she looked deeply relieved to see Svetlana back, almost as relieved as Svetlana felt to still see her there, not melted away like the mirage she still feared her old friend would turn out to be.

A few minutes after Svetlana had returned, she was surprised to see Damian walk in, carrying a case of beer and wearing his usual grin.  Usually, Sasha’s male employees were strongly encouraged to avoid socializing with her girls, but Damian didn’t seem too concerned with this.  

Dolly greeted Damian enthusiastically, making Svetlana raise her eyebrows.  Apparently she’d missed more than a little something, but Damian and Dolly were hardly her concern right now.  She forgot them easily, concentrating on Katya once more.

To her relief, Katya seemed to be integrating well.  All of the other women there aside from Dolly spoke Russian, so she was included easily in conversations.  Dolly remained undeterred by the language barrier, sitting next to Katya and chatting to her as much as anyone despite Katya’s inability to do anything in return other than smile and nod at her.

Katya didn’t appear to mind, she seemed as fascinated with Dolly as Svetlana remembered being at first.  After a while, she turned to Svetlana.  “She is so tiny!”  she whispered.  “How does she…”  her voice trailed off as her cheeks went pink.  “You know...with normal sized men?”

Some of the others heard her question and began to giggle.  Dolly noticed the looks being shot her way and turned to Svetlana, eyebrow raised.  “Is she talking about me?”

“She does not mean any harm,”  Svetlana hurried to explain.  “She is just wondering -”  she broke off as the giggles around her grew louder.

“Oh!”  Dolly’s offended expression faded into understanding. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”  she contemplated Katya for a moment before she smiled wickedly.  “Being that your girl wouldn't understand a word I'm saying anyway, I think this calls for a demonstration!”

“I volunteer!”  Damian announced promptly.

Dolly laughed, smacking him lightly on the arm as she passed him.  "Honey, you couldn't afford my going rate."

She disappeared into the bedroom.  A few minutes later, her door swung back open and Dolly came back out with a flourish, now clad in only matching bra and panties, but the real accents were her cowboy hat, red boots, and spurs.  The resulting whistles and catcalling had her grinning as she mounted the couch and then straddled the arm of it.  A few seconds later she was riding it merrily, taking off her cowboy hat to whip it around as she went.

Thunderous applause signalled the end of Dolly’s demonstration and she climbed down from the couch to take a bow.  Katya was nearly collapsed with laughter, looking more like the girl Svetlana remembered than she had since her abrupt appearance downstairs.  

When Katya excused herself to go to the bathroom, Svetlana didn’t notice her overlong absence for several minutes, lost in the rare feeling of ease and contentment, mixed with a heady amount of alcohol.  When Katya hadn’t returned several minutes later, Svetlana finally looked around, noting with a reluctant sinking of her stomach that Katya’s backpack had disappeared too.

“Katya?”  she jumped to her feet.  “Where did she -”  

“What’s wrong, hon?”  Dolly had been dancing with Damian, but she stopped instantly at the tone of Svetlana’s voice.  “I think she just went to the bath -”  Dolly cut herself off as they both saw the bathroom door standing open and empty.

“Think I saw her go in the bedroom,”  Damian spoke quietly.  He indicated the closed door of Svetlana’s bedroom with a nod of the head.

Svetlana and Dolly exchanged looks and without another word, they were both hurrying to the bedroom.  Damian watched them go, his dark eyes contemplative.

The first thing Svetlana noticed when she pushed open the door was the burning smell.   Then she saw Katya, lying across the bed.  When Svetlana called her name, she didn't answer.

Dolly reached her first, Svetlana’s limbs feeling suddenly leaden with fear.

“She’s fine,”  Dolly said after a moment of patting Katya’s face, peering down at her in concentration.  “She’s just out, is all.   Not surprising, considering the circumstances.”  Grimly, she nodded to the bedside table.  Svetlana winced as she saw the syringe and the empty vial.  Next to them lay the source of the burning smell; a well blackened spoon and a lighter.

“What did you expect?”  Dolly asked quietly when Svetlana remained speechless.  

“I'll make her better,”  Svetlana finally said.

“Oh, Lannie,” Dolly's voice was dripping in sympathy and Svetlana didn’t want it.

“I _will_ ,” Svetlana cut Dolly off.  “She came all this way to find me.  I have to help her.”

“She came all this way because whatever she left behind is a shitstorm,” Dolly returned.

“She came to me,”  Svetlana repeated, setting her jaw.  “She knew I would not turn my back on her.  I won't.  I’m going to take care of her.”

Dolly nodded slowly.  “Look, I’ll help if I can, but I gotta think about myself here too.  Where I was before I found Sasha looked a lot like that,”  she gestured to Katya on the bed.  “I’m not letting anyone put me back there.  Not even you.”

“I understand,”  Svetlana nodded.

Dolly gave her one last sympathetic smile before she turned and left, leaving Svetlana to watch over her Lazarus.

* * *

It was a wrench, having to leave a bleary eyed Katya alone in the apartment the next morning, but with her promise to Sasha hanging over her head, Svetlana had no choice.  She headed downstairs as soon as the spa was open, hoping she might get lucky with an early influx of customers.  

She was distracted all morning, thinking about Katya, about the bruises and the needle marks and the used syringe, trying to wrack her brain for some solution.  Luckily, none of her customers seemed to notice.

It was a different story when Terry arrived.  If she hadn’t been so lost in thought, she would have noticed that he was in a bad mood from the second he walked in the door.  But as it happened, his tense posture and clenched knuckles didn’t register until she had already ushered him into her room and was checking that the massage oil was warm, the way he liked it..  When she looked up, Terry was still standing a few feet away, fully dressed, glaring at her.

“What is wrong?”  she asked him.

“Can I have a few minutes of your attention now, or is that too much to ask?”  Terry snapped.

“I did not know you were paying me for conversation,”  she answered.

“I’m sure as shit not paying you for your fucking attitude!”  Terry glared at her furiously.  He looked so angry that Svetlana thought he’d storm away, maybe complain to Sasha and demand another girl, but after a few seconds he pulled his shirt over his head.  The angry gestures with which he yanked off the rest of his clothes warned her that an end to this temper tantrum was no where in sight.

“I am sorry,”  she murmured politely, trying to douse his temper before it grew uncontrollable.

“Sorry, my ass,”  Terry flung the words at her.  “Get your shit together, suka.  Lots of better girls I could be spending my hard earned money on.”

Of course he’d know how to call her a bitch in more than one language.  The idiot probably thought it was Ukrainian.

Svetlana managed to bank his bad mood, or so she thought, with a long, lingering massage before she encouraged him to roll over onto his back.  When she had him rock hard and ready for her, she reached over to grab a condom from the side table and suddenly found her wrist clenched in his tight grip.

“Drop the raincoat.  I’m not wearing that shit anymore.”

She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, and she had to suck in a deep breath to keep from gasping in pain.  “You have to,” she finally managed.  “It is the rules.”

“Fuck that shit,”  Terry sat up.  “I just got out of prison.  They test you for every goddamn thing known to man.  I don’t have nothing.  I’m not wearing these fucking rubbers anymore.”

“It is not just that,”  He was still holding her, his fingers squeezing tighter and tighter and he was watching her closely.  “I could get pregnant.”

“You bitches should all be in the pill anyway,”  Terry snapped coldly.

She wasn't but what did Terry know of clinics and waiting rooms, and clipboards full of paperwork; questions she barely understood and couldn’t give a truthful answer to anyway?  He was like any other man; if he did not have to deal with it, it couldn’t be that complicated.

“Look,”  Terry snapped impatiently.  “I've banged just about every whore in this place, including Sasha, and you don't see them dropping dead of disease, do you?”

“No’, she said, “but -”

With a quick twist, Terry held her wrist at a sharp angle.  She couldn’t help but gasp with the pain now.  One more tiny twist, and the bone was going to snap.

“I...can’t…”  she managed to hiss between her gritted teeth.  “Sasha would fire me if she knew.”

“You think so?”  Terry’s sudden smirk spread from ear to ear.  “I don’t.  In fact, I can promise you that if you go out this door right now and have a little talk with Sasha, she’ll tell you to do exactly what I want you to do.  Don’t believe me?  Go ask her.  Thing is, the longer I have to wait, the more fucking pissed off I’m going to get, and I’m already not in a good fucking mood.”

She looked into his eyes and knew he wasn’t lying.  “Fine,” she finally managed.

His grasp tightened once more.  For a blindingly painful moment, she thought he was going to break her wrist anyway, but he let her go so quickly that she actually stumbled back, rubbing her throbbing wrist with one hand.

“Just let me…” her voice trailed off, but she knew he heard the tremor in it as she turned her back to him, searching the lower cupboard until she found the can of spermicide she was looking for.  At least she’d have some protection.

“Hey,”  Terry’s voice was quieter now.  She turned back to see him looking almost abashed, like a small boy caught being naughty.  “Look, I didn’t mean to be so rough.  I just been having the shittiest fucking week.  I come in here to relax, and I don’t need any of you bitches mouthing off to me.  Already get enough of that shit at home.”

Svetlana didn’t answer.  She couldn’t trust her voice.  

“You really are a tough one,” Terry said after a moment.  His tone was cheerful now, even admiring.  “I've put men on the ground with that move,”  he indicated her wrist.

“I am not a man,”  she said flatly.  

“Come on,”  Terry coaxed her.  “I said I was sorry.  Give me a smile.  We’re going to have fun, right?”

“Sure,”  she agreed flatly, unzipping.  “Fun.  Lots of fun.”

* * *

“What happened to your wrist?”  Katya asked that night.  They were curled up, face to face, in Svetlana’s bed.  Their bed now, she reminded herself.  

“Oh,”  Svetlana looked down at her arm.  She’d pushed the encounter with Terry to the back of her mind; so many other things needing priority.  Now she couldn’t help but notice her wrist was visibly swollen.

“Don’t know,” she shrugged now.  “Must have twisted it.”

“It looks like it hurts,”  Katya clucked sympathetically.  She touched it lightly, and the feel of her cool fingers was a relief, like an ice pack pressed to the heated flesh.

“It’s fine,”  Svetlana was more absorbed in looking at Katya’s clear eyes, the slight tinge of color in her face.  “You look better,” she blurted.

More color rushed into Katya’s face at that and she looked away.  “I just needed to rest and eat, like you said.”

“That’s not all,”  Svetlana took a deep breath.

Katya tried to turn away at that but Svetlana grabbed her arm gently.  Svetlana tugged Katya’s arm, turning it to expose the marks on her skin once more.  “This has to stop.”

Katya swallowed hard.  “It’s not that easy, Sveta.”

“I know,”  Svetlana agreed.  She released Katya’s arm.  “But it still has to stop.  It is not good for you.  And Sasha won’t let you stay here if you are strung out.  We have no where else to go.”  

Katya nodded slowly.  “OK.”

Svetlana released a relieved breath, closing her eyes for a moment.  “I will help you.  I promise.”  

Katya broke into a shaky smile at that.  “I missed you so much, Sveta.”

“Me too,”  Svetlana whispered back.  “Every single day.”

After a few minutes Katya moved, looking over at the lamp next to the bed.  “Do you always sleep with that on?”

“Oh,”  Svetlana reached over her to turn it off.  When the room plunged into darkness it took her breath with it for one endless second, the sudden black full of faceless monsters, until she registered the feel of Katya’s hand in hers once more.

That night, she slept better than she had in years.

 

* * *

Whatever peace she’d gained in the dark of night was washed away by the harsh early morning light, when Svetlana woke to find Katya’s side of the bed empty.  Blind panic had her running from the bedroom, only to be weak knee’d with relief to find Katya in the bathroom.

The relief quickly changed to fear.  Katya was curled up in a ball next to the toilet, the full body tremors wracking her from head to toe.  When Svetlana knelt down, putting a hand on her shoulder, Katya flinched violently away, whimpering, then suddenly lunged to her knees and heaved into the bowl.

“Katya, what is wrong?  Are you sick?”  Desperate to help, Svetlana continued to kneel next to her, holding back Katya’s hair as she vomited.

“Withdrawal,”  came the cold reply.  Svetlana looked up, startled, to see Arian framed in the doorway, watching Katya as she spasmed.  Her roommate was wearing her usual sleep attire of underwear and nothing else, black eyeliner smudged in raccoon circles around her eyes.

“Withdrawal?”  Svetlana repeated, testing the word, wanting to push it away.

“Did you think it would be so easy?”  Arian voiced the question Svetlana didn’t want to ask herself.  “She could just stop at any time?  Sveta, we’ve both seen this before a hundred times.  She is addict.  She can’t just quit.  She needs help.  Rehab, maybe.”

“Rehab,”  Svetlana’s own head was throbbing now.  She rubbed her temples wearily.  “How?  I don’t have the money.  And they would ask so many questions…”

“She can do it,”  It was Dolly who was chiming in now.  She was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her tiny fists, her dark blonde hair messy, wearing only a t-shirt that hung more like a nightgown on her small frame.  “I kicked my habit without rehab.  Wasn’t easy, but it’s possible.  She just has to tough it out.”

“How can she tough it out?”  Svetlana gestured helplessly to Katya, who was curled back up in a ball again, sobbing quietly.  “Look at her!”

Dolly shook her head.  “It’s gonna be hard, hon.  She’s just gotta be strong.  It’ll be a bad couple of weeks but if she can hang in there -”

Arian huffed impatiently.  “You are both living in dream world.  How many people you know do this by themselves?”

“You got any better ideas?”  Dolly snapped back at her.

Arian gave her a resentful look but fell into silence.

After a moment, Dolly started to speak again, but Svetlana held up a hand to stop her before turning back to Katya.

“Hey,”  she touched Katya’s shoulder gently, shaking her lightly to get her attention.  After a moment Katya looked up at her, her face streaked with tears.  Svetlana took a deep breath.  “How much to get her what she needs, do you think?”

“Lannie, no!”  Dolly started to protest and Svetlana shot her a fierce look.  

“We can’t expect her to quit all at once!  It’s killing her!  And I cannot stay with her all the time; I have to work or Sasha will throw us out now.  We let her cut back, a little at a time, until she doesn’t need it so much anymore, yeah?”

“That is the stupidest plan I ever heard,”  Arian muttered under her breath.  For once, Dolly looked like she agreed with her.  

Svetlana glared at them both.  “So you two have better idea then?” she repeated.  “No?” she finished when they both stayed silent.  “Then stay out of it.”

Arian turned around and stomped away.  Her bedroom door slammed a few seconds later.

Svetlana had already returned her attention to Katya, speaking to her reassuringly, switching to Russian to explain what she was thinking in a quiet whisper.

Katya’s eyes were red and wet, but a tiny spark of hope and relief shown through.  “I know...a guy…” she managed between tremors.  “I...can...call…”

Svetlana looked back up, meeting Dolly’s eyes.  The other woman looked pale, worried, and more...there was a ghost in her eyes, a pale flicker of Katya’s hunger reflected back.

“Not here,”  Svetlana said quickly.  “We will go together.”

She helped Katya to her feet after several painstaking false starts, and they stumbled towards the front door together.

Heavier than Katya’s weight on her shoulder was the terror that she was doing this all wrong.  

But she didn’t have any better ideas either.

* * *

As time passed, the fear began to ease somewhat.  Katya was looking better every day; still far too thin, still too pale, but she was eating, talking, even laughing...the more she relaxed the more Svetlana saw the ‘old’ Katya emerge, the always smiling girl who regarded everyone who came across her path as a friend she just hadn’t met yet.  

That smile was a natural magnet; more often than not, their apartment door stayed open now like it had that first night, a steady stream of Sasha’s other girls coming over to chat with Katya, sometimes bringing dinner or drinks, often staying late into the night, the apartment ringing with laughter and conversation.  Damian was a frequent visitor as well; a phenomenon that Svetlana still wasn’t quite sure what to make of.

Even Arian, though she remained somewhat wary and distant, showed signs of thawing.  She stayed home more now in the evenings now, joining in on the impromptu gatherings, even surprising them all by giving Katya a few items of clothing that didn’t fit her.

Dolly, of course, was the most supportive, despite her hesitation over Katya’s continuing habit.   The two of them still communicated mostly in hand gestures and pointing when no one was nearby to translate, until the day Svetlana managed to sneak upstairs to have lunch, and was greeted by loud music as she unlocked the door.  

_Well, I’m sorry I can’t afford a Ferrari,_

_but that don’t mean I can’t get you there…_

She found Katya and Dolly dancing around the living room, singing at the top of their lungs.  For a minute, Svetlana just stood there in the doorway, watching them, a study in opposites, too tall Katya and too small Dolly, spinning in circles around each other and laughing.

“Lannie!”  Dolly broke out when she saw Svetlana standing there, stopping so abruptly that Katya nearly tripped over her.  “Why didn’t you tell me your girl knows so many English songs?”

Svetlana shrugged as she tossed her purse onto the coffee table.  “Why would I?”

“Because music is the universal communicator, dumbass!  I’ve practically had to invent my own sign language the last couple of weeks; if I had known I could have broken out a little Madonna or some Taylor Swift whenever we needed to chat, we could have made a lot more progress here!”

“Madonna!”  Katya agreed cheerfully.  “I play, yeah?”  she pointed at the mp3 player.

“See?”  Dolly threw up her hands.  “We’re already on the same page!”

Svetlana grinned.  “Sorry - “ she began, but was cut off by the ringing of her cell phone.  

“Get back here, now,” Sasha’s voice was ice when Svetlana answered.

“I am just going to eat -”  Svetlana started to protest.

“Your man is here,”  Sasha cut her off.  She hung up.

Svetlana sighed, her stomach sinking.  Terry.  She suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.

“I have to go,”  she stood up.

“So soon?  You haven’t eaten,”  Katya followed Svetlana to the door.  

“It’s fine,”  Svetlana put her hand on the doorknob, but Katya held her back.

“It’s not,”  Katya was studying Svetlana’s face closely, touching the circles under her eyes.  “You’ve been working too hard.  Because of me,”  she looked down for a moment before she brightened.  “I am better, Svetlana,” she touched her own arm gingerly, flushing slightly.  “Just once a day now.  Soon I can work too.  It will not all be on you.”

“Don’t worry about that,”  Svetlana shook her head.  

“Soon,”  Katya insisted, and she was smiling so brightly now that Svetlana didn’t have the heart to argue with her anymore.  She let the apartment door drift closed on Katya’s happy face.

* * *

It was very late before she made it home that night.  A large group of drunken frat boys had descended upon the spa right before they normally would have closed.  Never one to miss an opportunity, Sasha welcomed them with open arms.  Having to take care of several overprivileged, underpaying college brats had sapped what little energy Svetlana had left after another encounter with Terry.  At least that had gone far better than last time.  She was figuring the man out now.  Terry was the type who needed to feel that he had the upper hand.  As long as she did her best to accommodate that need, it was a simple matter to keep him calm.

She didn't want to think about that now though. All she wanted to do now was forget him, forget all of them, just go home and shower them all off her.

The apartment was strangely quiet when she went inside.  Damian and Dolly were curled up on the couch together, his arm around her tiny shoulders as she leaned against his chest.

“Where’s Katya?”  she asked as she kicked off her high heels, sighing in relief as her sore feet met the carpet.

“In the bedroom,”  Dolly said.  Svetlana didn’t miss the quiet worry in her voice.

“What’s wrong?”  she asked sharply.

Damian and Dolly exchanged looks.  “Don’t know,”  Damian said finally.  “She was fine most of the night, then she went in the bedroom.  Said she was tired.”

Nearly running now, Svetlana rushed to her bedroom, throwing open her door.  Immediately, she was greeted by the sound of quiet sobbing.

“Katya?”  The light was out and she couldn’t see anything.  When there was no response, just more sobbing, she stumbled her way over to the lamp and clicked it on.

Katya was curled up on the bed, facing away from her, still crying.  Her face was scrunched up in the sudden light, eyes tightly closed.  

“Katya, what happened?”  she climbed onto the bed, shaking Katya’s shoulder harder than necessary when the other woman didn’t respond.  “Katya, you are scaring me.”

Finally, Katya turned over to face her.  “I…”  she sat up.  “I just wanted to hear his voice.”

“Whose?”  Svetlana shook her head in bewilderment

“Nico’s,”  Katya smiled weakly.  “My son,”  she pressed her lips tightly together but was unable to stop them from trembling.  “I called home.  A woman answered the phone; a stranger.  And in the background I heard him, my Nico...I heard his voice.  He was calling her Mama,”  her face crumpled then.  “I’ve just been fooling myself, haven’t I?  I can’t go back for him.  He would not even know me.  All I would be is a stranger taking him away from everything that makes him happy.  He’s not mine anymore, Sveta.  He’ll never be mine again.”

“Katya…”  There was nothing Svetlana could say to make it better.  She let Katya put her head on Svetlana’s lap, and she stroked her friend’s hair as Katya sobbed for several minutes.

When Katya’s weeping finally slowed, Svetlana braced herself.  “Tell me what happened.  Tell me why you’re here.”

It was several shuddering breaths before Katya spoke.  “I was pregnant when you were taken away.  I knew already.  I was going to tell you, but I had to tell Dmitri first,”  she sat up heavily before she continued.  “He was so happy.  He wanted to get married right away.  So we did.”

“That’s where you were,”  Svetlana murmured now.   The memory of her last weekend home danced dangerously close, but she refused to let it fully settle.  “I tried to call you so many times.”

“I am so sorry,”  Katya’s voice was urgent now.  “I swear to you, we came back for you.  I would have never left you.  But when we came back, you were gone.  Your father,”  Katya’s voice hardened, pure hatred spreading venom through her tone.  “He said you had left on your own.  I knew he was lying; I knew you wouldn’t have left me either.  I made him tell me the truth,”  she exhaled.  “And then there was nothing I could do.  I never forgot you, Sveta, I promise I didn’t.  But then I had Nicolai and I…”

“Life went on,”  Svetlana finished for her.  “Of course it did.”

Katya nodded.  “It was good for a while, good as it could be.  I loved St. Petersburg,’ she smiled shakily.  “But when Mama got very sick, and we knew it was close to the end, I couldn’t stay away anymore.  Going back home...it ruined everything,”  she exhaled shakily.  “Dmitri could not forget who I had been.  Not when we were back in that fucking town, with everyone knowing.  When Mama died, I thought we could go away again, but everything was different by then.  His parents wanted us to come live with them.  They loved Nico so much; I thought they could accept me because of him.  I should have known it was all a trap.”

Katya dragged a hand across her damp face before she continued.  “Dmitri was ashamed of me.  We fought all the time.  Nothing I did was ever good enough for any of them.  Finally I…” she broke off.  “I made some mistakes.  I did bad things.  He could not forgive me.  He did not even try.  I think he was happy , really, to have a reason to get rid of me,” She lifted her head, looking at Svetlana.  ”You were right; everything you warned me about.  You must think I am so stupid, believing every thing would work out.”

“No,”  Svetlana brushed a hand through Katya’s tangled hair.  “I think you are brave.”

Katya actually managed to smile at that before it broke apart again.  “When Dmitri stopped loving me, I wanted to die.  I could accept it though.  I could live with it.  But - my son!”  her voice cracked again.  “I’m never going to see him again.  How do I live with that, Sveta?”  her eyes toured Svetlana’s face now, desperately searching for answers.  “I just want to stop feeling this way,”  she was sobbing again, rocking back and forth.  

“I know,”  Svetlana wrapped her arms around Katya and pressed her face to the top of Katya’s head.  “I know.  I am so sorry,”  her words spilled into Katya’s hair, useless and meaningless, until there were none left and all she could do was sit there with her friend, silent and helpless.

***

When Svetlana woke up the next morning, Katya was still lying next to her.  She was so quiet that it was a long moment before Svetlana realized she was awake, eyes glinting in the darkness as Katya stared up at the ceiling.

“You alright?”  Svetlana asked and immediately winced at the stupidity of that question.

Katya just sighed.  She turned her head, and in the muted light, Svetlana saw how dilated her pupils were.  “I’m fine,”  she breathed after a moment.

“Katya,”  Svetlana sighed as she sat up, looking at the fresh mark on Katya’s arm.  She forced herself to stop there.

“I’m sorry,”  Katya whispered, sitting up as well.  “I just…”

“I know,”  Svetlana nodded.  She climbed out of the bed, looking at the clock.  “I have to get ready,”  she hesitated.

“I will be fine,”  Katya insisted.  Her smile was glassy.  

Svetlana didn’t trust herself to answer with any sincerity.  She busied herself opening her closet door and selecting the day’s outfit.

“Sveta,”  Katya stopped her before Svetlana left the room.  Her smile was more real now, sadder.  “Tell Sasha I start work tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”  Svetlana turned back to her, startled.  “But -”

“Tomorrow,”  Katya insisted.  “This is my life now.  Here, with you.  It is time to start living it.”

The remaining protest dissolved on Svetlana’s lips.  Katya was right.  There was no use in pretending it was any different, or that she could keep shielding Katya indefinitely.  

“It’s not so bad.  I will teach you everything you need to know,” she told Katya.

Katya laughed suddenly.  “I remember when that was me saying it to you,”  she touched Svetlana’s shoulders, brushing off imaginary dust, before she stood back.  “Do you remember when we were little and we used to pretend what it would be like when we grew up?”    her smile faded.  “This isn’t exactly where we thought we would end up.”

Svetlana turned away.  “I will come back upstairs when I can, for lunch, maybe.”

“I will be here,”  Katya nodded.

Svetlana looked back one more time, watching the sunlight illuminate Katya’s face, before she made her way out of the apartment and downstairs.

* * *

There was a steady influx of customers that morning, and as many of Sasha’s girls didn’t appear until afternoon, Svetlana and the rest of the skeleton crew were kept busy.  She did manage to text Katya once to check in and was relieved by the cheery response.  After that, it was easier to keep her mind on her work, and apparently she was more charming than usual, because she managed to collect several fat tips.  Sasha was pleased enough to nod amicably when Svetlana announced she was breaking for lunch.

The apartment was silent when Svetlana unlocked the door, the small living area still and empty.  She did notice though that Katya’s purse and shoes were now sitting on the floor besides the door.

“Katya,”  she called, dropping her own purse beside them.  “Did you go out?”

No response.  Katya had probably gone back to sleep.  Svetlana headed towards the bedroom.  The door was halfway open.

She pushed it the rest of the way and stopped.  Katya was sprawled across the bed, face up.  Her eyes were open, staring and fixed.

“Katya?”  her whisper was tentative.

The silence was deafening.

Slowly, Svetlana moved across the room, to the closed blinds at the window, fumbling with them until they parted, shooting rays of light across the room.

Katya didn't move, even when the sunlight from the window hit her face.  There was dry, brownish liquid spilled from her mouth down to her chin and her lips had a bluish cast to them.

Svetlana refused to acknowledge these details, even as she came close enough to see the tight rubber wound around Katya's arm, the needle that still protruded from her skin.  She made her way to the bed, sitting down and taking Katya’s cold hand in hers.  “I’m back,” she whispered.  “I won’t leave you again.”

The minutes blurred together and ran by, the shadows lengthening.  By the time the bedroom door was flung open, Svetlana had been sitting in complete darkness, keeping her silent vigil.  The creak of the door and the sudden glare of light in her eyes was a violent intrusion.

She tried to close her ears to all of it, the cries of alarm, the frantic questions, the hands on her shoulder, shaking her.  It wasn’t until they tried to pull her away from Katya that she began to fight.  

She had a vague realization of coaxing voices in response, of something being placed in her mouth and then a forced swallow of burning liquor.  The dark returned a few minutes later, crowding out the light, and gratefully, she fell into it.

* * *

_Gone._

Katya was gone.  Dissolved by a needle into nothingness.

There was no chance to say goodbye.  By the time Svetlana had  regained consciousness, Sasha had summoned her minions, and they’d taken Katya away.  She was gone without a trace as if she’d never existed, no funeral, no grave to visit.  

Nothing left behind.

Svetlana couldn’t think of it.  It was excruciating to imagine Katya lying alone forever in a hastily dug hole.  When the picture wouldn’t leave her head, she reached for the full glass and the pill that had been helpfully left at her bedside, tossing it back and waiting impatiently for whatever peace it could bring her.

There was a tentative knock at her door, and it was pushed open a few seconds later.  Dolly crept in slowly, looking around cautiously as if expecting an attack, relaxing when Svetlana remained silent.

"Hey, darlin' , how you feeling?

She couldn't answer.  There were no words.

"That good, huh?  Me too," Dolly's lips trembled for a moment before she blinked her red eyes.  "Anyway, hon, Sasha is giving you a couple of days off; said she'll cover your fees and if that ain't the most miraculous of miracles since Jesus turned water into wine I don't know what is,”  she forced a small smile.  “The rest of us don’t get the pleasure though.  I gotta head downstairs but I brought you this first,”  she indicated the small plate she held.  “Just some toast and OJ.  I figured you wouldn’t be up for much. Try to get some rest.”

Svetlana didn’t have energy to do more than accept the pill and the orange juice that Dolly gave her, ignoring the toast.

Dolly turned back before she stepped out the door.  Svetlana saw that her big eyes were again full of tears.  “I’m so sorry. Katya -”

“Please don’t - “  Svetlana cut her off, choking out the plea before the rest of the words dried up.

“OK,”  Dolly wiped her eyes quickly.  ‘I’ll check on you again as soon as I can.”

The next couple of days were a haze of sleeping, waking up to the empty bed next to her, and having to adjust all over again.  Eventually Svetlana started refusing the pills she was so readily offered; as much as she wanted to escape it was too hard to fall into blissful black only to wake up and have to adjust to the empty bed next to her and the new hole in the world all over again.

On the third day, knowing Sasha’s unexpected beneficence would soon run out, she dressed, put on her makeup, and went downstairs.

Unfortunately, Svetlana had  picked a bad time to make her reappearance.  She would have chosen to silently reintegrate without much notice,  but most of the women were in the waiting room, lolling about and waiting for customers, when she descended the staircase.

Raisa was the first to see her, and she immediately emitted a loud squeal and jumped up, causing all the others to follow suit and violently reminding Svetlana of why she had never liked the girl.

In the midst of loud greetings and far, far too many tearful condolences over Katya, she looked over to see Sasha watching her.

After a moment, Sasha lifted a shoulder.  “Was probably for the best.  Junkies always more trouble than they are worth.”

Svetlana exploded across the room, trying to get to her, and took several hands to hold her back.  Immediately, they were surrounded by Ivan and his co-horts.  Damian hovered on the edge, looking worried.  

Ivan grabbed Svetlana’s arm in a brutal grip.  “What do you want us to break, Sasha?”

Sasha ignored him for the moment, staring Svetlana down coldly as Svetlana returned her stare.  Finally, she shook her head.  “You stupid bitch,” her voice was icy.  “You’ve been with me a long time, so this once, I forgive.  Raise your hand to me again and I will cut your throat.”

“Not if I cut yours first,”  Svetlana spat at her.  

A small, inexplicable smile played around Sasha’s mouth at that.  Without another word, she turned and left the room.  A muttered oath later, Ivan dropped her Svetlana’s arm and stomped after his sister.

“God Almighty, that was close,”  Dolly had moved to Svetlana’s side, her face ashen.  The other women had scattered, throwing her cautious looks as they went, sans Arian,   “Baby, I know you’re upset but you gotta be careful.”

Svetlana shrugged her off, moving away.  There was not a particle of her that was concerned about Sasha’s anger or what form any vengeance might take.  The only thing she felt was a vague desire for the day to be over.  Soon she could go home and drink until the dark wasn’t frightening anymore; until it enclosed her like a friend.

She slept-walked through the next hours, handling her few customers on automatic pilot.  If any of them had noticed, none of them complained.  As always, she was merely a soft hand and a warm mouth.  Today it suited her just fine.  She would have been content to blend into the wallpaper and slowly fade away.

Right after noon, Terry showed up.  She couldn’t bring herself to summon any type of reaction to his unexpected presence.  It was Sasha’s turn to look worried; Svetlana vaguely registered her telling Terry that Svetlana wasn’t well and offering him another girl of his choosing.  

He refused, as Svetlana knew he would.  A minute later, she was escorting him to her room.

A distant voice in her head reminded Svetlana she was supposed to be playing the part he expected of her, her wrist throbbing in warning, but she had no energy to comply.  In silence she gathered her supplies, waiting for him to undress.  

“What the fuck is up with The Walking Dead re-enactment?  What’s wrong with you?”  Terry demanded after several silent minutes.

“Sasha told you I’m sick,” she said, feeling vaguely curious to know how he’d punish her for today’s indifference.

“Bullshit.  Tell me what’s really going on.”  

Svetlana placed a neatly folded towel on the table before looking up at him.  "My friend died," she said finally, beginning to unbutton her top.

“Stop that,” Terry snapped suddenly and she looked up in surprise to see him staring at her with an oddly contemplative expression before he spoke again.  “Come on,"he took her arm.  "Let's get the fuck out of here."

"What?"  she barely managed to get the words out before Terry was steering her out of the massage room and down the hallway.

Sasha stood up as Terry tugged Svetlana past her.  "Where do you think you are going?" she demanded.

"Taking Svetlana out," Terry bit out, not slowing down as he passed Sasha. "She'll be back in a couple of hours."

"You still have to pay for that!"  Sasha yelled after them.

"Fuck off, you ball busting commie whoremonger!"  Terry shouted back.

Svetlana didn't even have the energy to protest as Terry nearly dragged her with him down the street and the next couple of blocks in silence.  She didn't know what to expect next, wasn't sure she could even bring herself to care, but she still felt some small surprise when he shoved her through the doorway of a small diner.

A minute later they were sitting across from each other in a cracked vinyl booth.  A tired looking waitress in a baffling squirrel topped hat handed them a couple of menus, mumbled she'd be back in a minute, and disappeared.

Svetlana stared dumbly at the table top until Terry slapped down a menu in front of her.  "Pick something.  You gotta eat.  Your friend's the one who's dead, not you."

Unable to hide her surprise this time, she forgot the menu, looking straight at him.

"What happened?"  Terry asked her after a few seconds.  

"Overdose," she finally managed.  

Terry grimaced.  "That's how my second wife went out, mother of my two youngest.  She was only twenty six.  Dumb fucking waste."

“I’m sorry,”  Svetlana said automatically, her brain conveniently picking out the polite response and forcing it out of her.

They were interrupted by the waitress’s return.  Since Svetlana hadn’t even glanced at the menu, Terry ordered the breakfast special for her.  After the waitress had collected their menus and departed, the two of them were silent for a moment.

“Do you miss her?”  Svetlana hadn’t planned on asking; it just seemed as though the words were just there.

“‘Course I fucking miss her,”  Terry replied brusquely, reaching around her to get creamer for his coffee.  “I loved her,”  he looked back at her.  “You love your friend?”

Somehow it was easy to talk about Katya to this hook-nosed, hard man, knowing that he didn’t really care.  “Yes,”  she nodded.  “Very much.”

“Was it a fucking dyke thing?”  Terry demanded at that, looking suddenly suspicious, and Svetlana looked up from the empty sugar packet she was shredding, surprising herself by laughing.  It was a raw, painful sound, but maybe laughter would always feel that way now.

“Katya was more than that,” she said finally.  “My best friend since I was five.  Closer than family.  She was my family.”

“Family’s important,”  Terry agreed, stirring his coffee.  “Most important thing of all,”  he watched her as she sipped her coffee and then pushed it away.  “Check this out,” he squirmed in his seat, reaching down.  A few seconds later he’d withdrawn a battered brown wallet from his pocket.  “Lemme show you mine.”

Terry flicked it open and pulled a small photograph from its protective sleeves. “My three oldest, Iggy, Colin, Tony and their mother.  Melody,” he told her, passing her a pictured of a laughing woman surrounded by three young boys, one brown haired, the other two blond like her.  “My first wife and a fucking useless bitch if there ever was one.  She split for California after we had a fight.  Used to come back every once in a while crying about how she wanted to take the boys with her.  Stopped that when I took her for a little drive last time she showed up and showed her the grave I dug for her.  Nobody messes with my fucking family,”  he put the picture back in his worn wallet and extracted another one, holding it out to her.  “These are my two youngest, Anna's kids,”  In the picture, two pale teenagers with much darker hair than their older siblings stood side by side, identical scowls pointed towards the camera.

“Mickey and Mandy,”  he told her.  Svetlana murmured something appropriate, feigning interest.

“Mandy’s my princess, the only girl,”  Terry beamed fondly at the picture.  “And Mickey’s smarter than shit. He’s the most like me; my other boys are as dumb as rocks.  Good kids though; they do what they’re told,”  he was putting the picture back now, still talking.  “Mickey’s always been the runt of the litter.  I had to be extra hard on him, you know, teach him how to take care of himself.  And I did a good fucking job; ain't no one gets the drop on that boy.  He'd crack your skull for lookin’ at him wrong,"  Terry’s smile faded slightly.  “Still I worry about him sometimes.  Spends too much time in his own goddamn head.  Like his mother that way, and look how she ended up.”

The waitress returned then with their food, saving Svetlana from having to pretend she cared.  She forced herself to take bites of her food as Terry ate noisily, not wanting to incite his hair trigger temper all over again.

“You feel better now?”  Terry asked after a few minutes.

Svetlana thought about it.  “Yes,” she admitted, surprising herself.  

“Good,”  Terry finished the last bite of his food and belched noisily.  “It’s shitty, what happened.  But you gotta leave the past in the past.  Now is all we fucking got, right?”  he stood up at that, throwing some money on the table without bothering to look at the check.

She didn’t say thank you.  Instead, when they left the diner, Svetlana steered Terry into the alley behind the diner, got on her knees, and sucked him off in the shadow of the nearby dumpster.

After all, if there was one thing she’d learned in this life, it was a rare kindness that came without a price tag, and Terry Milkovich was one man she didn’t want to have a balance due with.

* * *

Svetlana didn’t think about Terry over the next few weeks.  She didn’t think much about anything beyond the effort it took just to move through each day.  Sometimes she missed the hazy numbness that had filled her in the days after Katya’s death.  Everything felt raw now, the air itself made of invisible sandpaper that stripped her skin constantly.  

She did her best not to think of anything beyond that; the few times her mind had even touched on it, the endless, empty road before her filled her with terror.  Before Katya had returned, she’d been internally holding her breath for years, anticipating that something would change, something good would finally happen, to make her life feel like it had meaning.  When Katya came back, it was everything that she’d ever wanted.  It was the miracle she’d been waiting for.

And now it was gone.  She wasn’t holding her breath anymore, what she’d been waiting for had come and gone, forevermore the day after Christmas, nothing left to anticipate.

But she was here.  She was still alive.  So many years ago, Tyotya Lena had told her that her life was a gift, and Svetlana had held those words to her ever since, even when they seemed impossible to believe.  It was all she had left of Lena, and of Katya.  She lived for them, because they couldn’t.

On another endless, sticky humid day.  Svetlana was slumped in the waiting room next to Dolly.  She hadn’t even registered the phone on Sasha’s desk ringing until her name was called.

"It's Terry," Sasha gestured her over.  "He wants you at his house.  Now."

"What?"  Svetlana stared.

"You heard me.  He doesn't sound like he wants to be kept waiting," Sasha stood up.  "I'll get you the address."

“No.  I -”  Svetlana shook her head, a sudden unease creeping up her spine and making the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.  “I don’t want to go.”

“He asked for you specially.   _‘Send over the Russian,’_ Sasha mimicked his voice, making a face.

"But we don't do that," Svetlana protested.  "You've said yourself we don't ever go to a customer's house."

Sasha wasn't quite meeting her eyes, taking an unnaturally long time to scroll through her rolodex looking for the address.  "Terry is an exception."  

Mindlessly Svetlana rubbed her wrist.  Whatever it was that Terry wanted her for so suddenly, she felt certain she wasn’t going to like it.  "Tell him I was with a customer.  It will be OK, I know how to manage him.  I will smooth it over when he comes in again."

Sasha stood up, a piece of paper clutched in her hand.  "You know how to manage him?” she shook her head, her laugh dry and unamused.  “Svetlana, you may think you have Terry Milkovich wrapped around your finger but you do not have the slightest idea who you are really dealing with.  The last one who told him no ended up with a face full of fractures and a month in the hospital.  She will never be the same again.  After that, I told him I would not allow him to visit my girls any more.  He and two of his sons dragged me into an alley, held a razor to my face and told me exactly what they would do to me if I didn't reconsider.”

She tried to pass Svetlana the paper, but Svetlana refused to take it.  "You tell me this, and you still expect me to go?"

Sasha sighed.  "You have no choice.  My advice to you is to lose his interest fast.  You will only be safe when he has moved on to someone else.  In the meantime, do not make him angry,” she studied Svetlana for a long moment.  “I will have Damian drive you," she gestured to the man and he was at her side instantly.  She handed him the address.  "He will wait outside for you, make sure you get home safe."

"Or bury my body in a hole in some vacant lot next to Katya if it all goes wrong.  Long as it never comes back to you.”  

Sasha held her gaze steadily, before she lifted her shoulders in a shrug, and Svetlana knew she’d gotten all she was going to get from the other woman.  She turned and walked out the door, Damian hurrying after her.

***

It wasn’t nearly long enough before they were parked in front of the address Sasha had given them.  Svetlana stayed where she was, not even taking off her seatbelt, staring up at the small brown house

"C'mon, Lan-" Damian broke off at the murderous look she shot him.  "Svetlana.  Whatever.  Look, this is nothing to freak out over. It’s not like you ain't ever fucked the dude before."

She just shook her head.  Damian's tone softened.  "Hey, I'm gonna be right here, ok?"

Svetlana still couldn’t see what good that was going to do her, but she nodded anyway.  There was no point in stalling any longer.  She got out of the car and walked up the steps slowly.  

One last pause, then Svetlana took a deep breath and knocked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't get this one out as fast as I wanted, but at least it didn't take as long as the last chapter. Thank you so much for reading! I apologize for any comments I haven't responded to yet from the last chapter. All feedback is incredibly important to me and I'll definitely be catching up with replies tonight. 
> 
> Next chapter...Mickey!
> 
> Special thanks goes to my beloved cyber sister and comrade in arms zebrawallpaper, without whom I never would have gotten this far.
> 
> Thank you so much for your continued support. Feedback is always so much appreciated.


	4. Mickey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some memories that are meant to be left in the dirt, buried deep to never surface again. And that's all that Svetlana wants...to never see or think of Mickey Milkovich for the rest of her life. 
> 
> Fate is going to quickly make that impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: this chapter deals directly with the events of 3x666, starting with a brief flashback of the event itself. This is not a detailed re-enactment of the scene; it occurs after the act, but it still is graphic and comes at the very beginning of this chapter (the part in italics). Also warnings for mentions of child and animal abuse, as well as suicidal ideation.

_“Get the fuck out of here and don’t you ever come back,”  Terry growled at the other boy, the one that had been their unwilling audience.  The boy moved slowly in response, a sleepwalker still trying to move through a nightmare.  The drying blood on his face dimmed in comparison to the fire orange of his hair._

_For one second, their eyes met, the boy’s eyes swollen, blackened, and filled with tears.  There was more than pain in them, there was a rapidly becoming unquenchable hatred.  It burned through her for that brief fraction of time before she turned away._

_A few seconds later, and the slamming of the door announced the orange boy’s departure.  The other one had gone too, hobbling to his feet and disappearing through another door as soon as his companion was gone._

_Numbly, she realized that she was still naked and she bent to reach for her dress._

_“Not so fast, suka,”  she looked up to see Terry unbuckling his belt.   “You’re going to earn your money’s worth today.”_

 

* * *

 

“Lannie?  Come on, I know you’re in there.  Answer me.  You’re starting to freak me out.  Lannie!!”

The sound of the bathroom door rattling as Dolly hammered her small fists into it finally penetrated Svetlana’s apathy.  

“It’s unlocked,”  she finally managed to choke out as the door shook harder, Dolly apparently adding kicking to the onslaught.

The sounds stopped abruptly.  “No, it isn’t - ! “  Svetlana heard Dolly begin, then there was sudden, abashed quiet.  ‘Oh.”  A second later, the door swung open and Dolly hurried over the threshold, stopping abruptly as she saw Svetlana slumped in the corner next to the bathtub, clad only in a towel.

“I used up all the hot water,”  Svetlana whispered.  “Sorry.”

“That doesn’t matter,”  Dolly rushed across the floor and then carefully, she kneeled down at Svetlana’s side.  “Damian told me you didn't seem like you were doing too well when he brought you home.  What happened?”

Svetlana closed her eyes for a long moment, slowly shaking her head.

“Oh, honey,”  Gingerly, Dolly smoothed a wet lock away from Svetlana’s face.  “That Terry guy turned out to be a big ol’ meanie, didn’t he?”

There was nothing Svetlana could say to that.  She just drew her knees in closer to her chest, shivering again despite the muggy heat of the bathroom.

Dolly stared at her for a long moment,   “Did he hurt you, Lannie?”

Svetlana shook her head.  “No,”  she whispered.  “Worse.”

“What?”  Dolly looked bewildered.

Svetlana stared at the evaporating drops of water that dotted the cracked tiling.  “A long time ago, a wolf came to my home.  He held me down and he hurt me.  There were others after that, but he was the worst.  First one always is,”  she shook her head.  “But I always had one thing that none of them could take, no matter what they did to me.  I got to know I was better than them.   On my worst day, I was better.  Because I would never, ever do to someone what they did to me,”  she laughed suddenly, sharp and bitter.  “Now that’s gone too.  It was all I had left.  Now I am the wolf.”

“Wolf?  Hon, I don’t have the least idea what you’re talking about,”  Dolly bit her lip.  “Why don’t we get you into bed?  I’ll call Sasha.  Maybe we can get her to give you a couple more days off.”

“No,”  Svetlana stood up, dropping the towel that had been wrapped around her.  She walked naked into her bedroom, opening drawers to find something to wear, ignoring the crumpled purple dress lying in the corner.  

“Where are you going?”  Dolly had followed her, and she stood in the doorway, watching Svetlana dress.

“Back to work,”  Svetlana told her, and pushed past her without another word.

* * *

Fall crept up on Svetlana...she didn’t notice the languorous summer air turning crisp until it started to bite at her skin; didn’t notice the colors changing and the skies getting darker until she finally could no longer ignore the crunching of the once brilliantly colored leaves, dead and withered underneath her feet.  

Maybe there was still some beauty left in the remaining golden autumn days before the real cold descended upon the city, but Svetlana could not bring herself to look for it.  She moved through the days as if the haze of winter was already upon her, no energy to do anything more than rise in the morning, move through the routine of her day and watch the minutes tick past.  

The shorter the days became, the duller she felt, an ever-increasing exhaustion setting into her bones.  She was tired from the moment she woke up in the morning until the second she could crawl back into her bed at night, pull the blankets over her head, and blissfully sleep.  It was her one escape...not even the nightmares bothered her now.  

More than once, she’d opened her eyes in the morning and considered not rising at all.  Sometimes she even planned how she could best aid that.  A sharp blade and a hot bath, the water turning dark crimson and rocking her gently away?  A bottle of pills, swallowed before her head touched the pillow, falling into a dream from which she’d never awake?  Maybe it’d even be a happy one.

In Svetlana’s few moments of clarity, she felt ashamed of her own weakness.  And yet she didn’t know how to shake the neverending malaise.

Still, the clinging apathy was better than what it turned into on those nights when she couldn’t seek refuge in sleep, when the images wouldn’t leave her alone, when the memories crushed her underneath their weight.  When the empty space in her bed that Katya had so briefly occupied screamed to be acknowledged.  And then she would be on her knees, no idea how she got there, and the sound that was coming out of her might have been sobs, but it felt more like screams, screams that were held back and strangled until they came out a choked distortion of what they’d started out as.  

At least there were small mercies.  It had been well over a month since...her mind skittered away from formulating the memory fully.  She had neither seen or heard from Terry.  At first she’d considered this merely a temporary reprieve, steeling herself every time the door of the Spa opened to see him striding in, his usual impatient gaze swinging around until he located her.  As the weeks began to pass, slowly, Svetlana relaxed ever so slightly.  It wasn’t like it was surprising that watching her straddle his bleeding son had curbed his appetite for her.  That was just fine with her...the less reminders that she had, the further she could put the whole thing behind her.  

The fall afternoons were starting to bypass crisp in favor of bone-chilling, the continual autumn sunlight belying the misery of stepping outside for more than a few minutes at a time.  On one of those deceptively golden days, Svetlana accompanied Dolly, Arian, and a few other girls from Garden Springs across the street for lunch, to a small cafe that had just opened.  

She’d been starving when Dolly suggested it, but as soon as she walked into the cafe and the smell of food hit her, her stomach had churned uncomfortably.  Nothing on the menu sounded appealing in the least, but she finally settled on a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a handful of crackers.  Even that was a struggle to get down.

They were returning from the cafe, about to cross the street back to their building when two teenage boys pushed past.  Suddenly, the taller one stopped in his tracks, ignoring the muttered insults of the people behind him that nearly ran into him.  He remained statue-still, staring in her direction.  

She stared back at him, impatiently at first, wondering what the hell his problem was, and the faint familiarity blossomed into a graphic picture in her mind and she knew where she’d seen him before; the orange boy from that day, at Terry’s…

Svetlana was just as frozen, staring back, and she was sure their expressions matched now.

“Hey!”  Dolly and Arian had turned back, gesturing to the others to go on without them.  “What’s the hold up?”  Dolly began and then caught sight of the tall teenager.  Her confused expression immediately melted into a smile, the born saleswoman taking over.  “You like what you see, sugar?  If so, why don’t you step inside with us?  My girl’s worth your while.”

The boy didn’t take his eyes off of Svetlana, nor did she stop staring at him.  Out of the corner of her head she could see Dolly’s head swiveling back and forth, staring up at them.

“Well, Lannie, if you don’t want him, I’ll take him!”  she shot the full force of her smile his way.  “What do you say?  Want to play a round of The Ginger Pony with me?”  

“Hey, Ian!”  Another boy, shorter and sandy haired, had walked back to join them, looking impatient.  “What - “  he stopped when he saw the company his companion was keeping, a slow grin spreading across his face.  “The fuck...you switching teams?”

Dolly and Arian immediately turned their attention to the newcomer.  Arian was putting her hand on his shoulder, leaning over to whisper in his ear, but it was Dolly that seemed to have the new boy’s attention.  She was well aware of it too; apparently giving up the red-head as a lost cause.  “What about you, darlin’?  Any objections to saddling up?  I can promise you one hell of a ride!”

At this, Orange Boy seemed to shake awake, shooting Svetlana one last, ice-cold glare before he moved to the other boy, grabbing his arm.  “Come on,”  he muttered, barely audible.

“But..”  his companion allowed himself to be dragged away, albeit reluctantly, his eyes still on Dolly.

“You know where to find me!”  Dolly called over to him and he grinned once more before the two of them were swallowed up by the crowd.

Dolly shrugged, turning back to Svetlana.  “Win some, lose some.  What was that all about anyway?  You know that kid from somewhere?”

Svetlana couldn't answer.  The nausea that had begun to build at the sight of him hadn't faded when he did.  In fact, it was building, building...

She whirled and ran for the trash can chained to the corner, barely making it in time.

* * *

Her bad lunch and the surprise encounter continued to linger through the rest of the day, making the afternoon drag on.  She was beyond grateful when Sasha waved her and Arian off a bit early, clearly fed up with the slow pace of the evening  shift.

When they walked into the apartment that night, Svetlana was stunned to see one of the teenage boys from earlier, the shorter one with the sandy hair, standing in the living room, buttoning up his shirt.  Dolly stood in her bedroom doorway, clad only in panties, watching him, a slight smile on her face.

“Oh!”  The boy looked up at their entry.  “Sorry - I was just leaving,”  he turned to grin at Dolly.  “That. Was. Amazing.  Thanks!”

“Come back and see me sometime, cutie,”  Dolly winked at him, waving as he disappeared through their door.  

“You brought him here?”  Arian turned on Dolly, her brows raised.

Dolly shrugged.  “He couldn’t afford Sasha’s going rate.  I decided to give him a free sample.  What can I say...I can never resist breaking in a colt.”  

“You’d better not let Sasha catch you pulling this shit!”  Arian tapped her foot impatiently.  “Besides, Sveta and I do not need parade of horny teenagers marching through our doors because you want to give out charity.  Keep it downstairs next time.”

Unabashed, Dolly nearly shrugged before she looked at Svetlana again, her face growing concerned.  “Lannie?  You’re looking a little green again...”

Svetlana couldn’t answer; she was too afraid of what would happen if she opened her mouth.  The nausea that had been barely banked had coming rushing back in a tidal wave as soon as she’d laid eyes on Dolly’s ‘guest’.  

“You have been sick for a while, yes?”  Arian said suddenly.  Svetlana didn’t miss the look her roommates were sharing, but she was feeling too shitty to care.  She bolted for the bathroom without another word, leaving Arian and Dolly staring after her.

* * *

 

Three days later, Svetlana wasn’t feeling any better.  On the contrary, she seemed to get sicker every day.  She couldn't keep anything down, could barely work because the strangest things set her off, a customer’s bad breath, the stagnant scent of the dumpsters carried in on the breeze, even a fresh blast of perfume.  And if she wasn’t throwing up, all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep.  The exhaustion that had plagued her for the past several weeks had become a full on epidemic; no matter how much she slept it was never enough.

Svetlana was sitting on the bathroom floor, too weak to move although the day’s vomit marathon seemed to have ended for now, when the door opened and Dolly and Arian came in.  They hadn’t bothered to knock...or maybe they had, and she just hadn’t noticed.  Not like her head was all that clear anymore.

“Aw honey, you just feel terrible, don't you?”  Dolly was all sympathy.

Svetlana managed to nod.  “Flu,” she muttered.  “I'll be better soon.”

Dolly and Arian exchanged a look before Dolly turned back to her.  “Lannie, sweetie, I don't think it's the flu.”

“What?”  Svetlana stared at her wearily.

“Here,” Arian tossed a box at Svetlana, but her reflexes were slow and it bounced off her shoulder and hit the floor.  

Svetlana picked up the box with trembling fingers. “No,” she said after a moment.  “I cannot be - “  She broke off.  Tiny explosions were going off in her brain, a carefully timed minefield set up, imploding her life one bomb at a time.

Dolly patted her shoulder.  “Honey, you been sick as a dog for days and you aren't getting any better.  It's not the only sign either.  Look at these,” without warning, she patted Svetlana’s chest and Svetlan gasped with pain, jerking away and giving her a murderous look.

“Sensitive, aren't they?”  Dolly nodded knowledgably.  “And look at the size of them!  Now you ain't ever been an ironing board, but those peaches are turning into melons.”

 _Peaches?  Melons?_  Svetlana's head was starting to pound, and she couldn’t summon the energy to care about whatever Dolly was babbling about

“C'mon, Sveta,” Arian was pulling her to her feet.  “All you need to do is piss on this and we'll know for sure.”

A long moment of hesitation, and Svetlana finally took the plastic stick Dolly had helpfully unwrapped. After several awkward seconds of trying to position herself over the toilet to actually pee on the stick, not helped by Arian and Dolly's commentary, she managed to do the deed.

“Ok,” Arian said when Svetlana set the stick on the counter.  “We will give it a few minutes - “

“No need,” Dolly had stood on her tiptoes to look at the test.  She picked it up and tilted it so that Arian and Svetlana could both see the pink positive sign that was already forming.  “That's not gonna change.  You're pregnant.”

“Oh God,” the last bit of strength left Svetlana in a rush and she sat down heavily on the closed toilet seat lid.  “Oh God.”

“Fuck,” Arian said, putting it far more succinctly.  “Is an accident?  Or is there someone you didn’t use rubber with?”

Svetlana couldn't breathe, but the answer played like a movie in her head anyway.  Terry had refused to wear condoms for the last couple of times she’d seen him, but she’d always used spermicide as a back up with him.  But that day...with his son…

“Oh God,” she said for the third time as the room began to spin.  “What am I going to do?”

Arian and Dolly were both quiet for a moment.

“Guy over at that place on Baker has done a few of our girls.  He'll take care of you for a couple hundred,” Dolly finally suggested.  

“No!” Arian was shaking her head now before Svetlana could even wrap her mind around what Dolly was suggesting.  “He is a butcher.  Marina ended up in the hospital because of him.  She cannot ever have children now.”

Svetlana was breathing in small gasps.  Seeing this, Dolly came over, putting her arms around her.  “Oh hon, it's gonna be ok.  We will figure this out.”  

“She needs real doctor,” Arian continued as Dolly rubbed Svetlana’s shoulders.  “Expensive, though,  That will be hard.  And we need to find one that won't ask too many questions.”

“Honey,” Svetlana was beginning to shake, and Dolly clearly felt the tremors.  “Is this what you want?”

Svetlana flinched at the word baby.  Slowly, she shook her her head, “Yes”, she managed, irritated by the clear hesitation in her own voice.  What the hell would she do with a baby?  How would she raise it?  This was just some cruel joke the cosmos and her own body had conspired to play on her.  All she wanted to do was leave that day in the basement of her past, where it belonged, and now she was stuck with a growing, physical reminder, a problem she couldn’t shake.

“C’mon,”  Dolly said after a long moment of studying Svetlana’s expression.  “Go lie down, get some rest.  Ari and me will ask around, maybe make some calls.  We’ll come up with something,”  she tugged at Svetlana’s hand until Svetlana stood up, allowing Dolly to pull her towards her bedroom.

After Dolly had gone, she waited for a moment, turning on the stereo loud enough to mask any noises from the room, then she pushed her dresser away from the wall.  When it slid back, she could see the outline of the small square she’d carefully cut into the wall, well over a year ago when she’d first moved in.  

Svetlana knelt, removing the clumsily cut out panel and reached carefully inside to pull out the small metal lockbox.  With the other hand she felt beneath the dresser until her fingers found the key she kept taped to the bottom of it.  

She unlocked the box and the overflowing bills spilled onto her lap.  She didn’t really need to count it again; she knew how much was there, but she did it anyway.

She’d been saving money ever since her first independent ‘job’ after Alex had dumped her on the streets.  There was not a man who had touched her since then who hadn’t contributed to it in some way, even if it was only a quarter at a time.

It hadn’t been easy; back then she’d been sleeping in doorways and blowing men for nothing more than a few dollars and a candy bar.  And still, it was an overwhelming compulsion, left over, she supposed, from a time in another life, when her red box and her small savings were going to be her escape to a better life.  When Katya had returned, Svetlana had dipped into it for the first time to help take care of her.  Now that Katya was gone, the box was more of a mockery than ever.  She had no dreams, no plans.  Nothing left to aspire for.  And yet she continued to fill it.

Now it could save her. It was enough.  More than enough.  She could pay for the abortion right now.  

Svetlana stayed there, the box on her lap, the neatly re-stacked bills filling it, unaware of the time passing until she heard Dolly calling her.  “Lannie, I made dinner!”

Then she locked it up again, put it back in the panel, and pushed the dresser back until all evidence was wiped clean.  As she walked past, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, half expecting to see Sonya/Svetlana reflected there once more, but instead, she didn’t recognize the face she saw looking back at all.

* * *

Maybe just thinking his name was like unleashing a curse; sending a silent call rippling through the air until it filtered downward into the muck and slime to deliver its message.

At least that’s all Svetlana could imagine as she watched, open-mouthed, as Terry Milkovich walked through the front door of the Garden Springs Spa the next afternoon.  She had a single second to send a silent plea that he wouldn’t look her way, wouldn’t want her now, that he was just here to get his rocks off with the first random woman he saw.

That bit of hope dissolved as soon as his eyes locked on her.

Despite the hundred-pound stone that had taken up immediate residence in the pit of her stomach, Svetlana forced a smile as she led the way back to her massage room.  

“Long time, no see,”  he told her, his usual smirk in place as she opened the door for him.  “Been busy!  Missed your sweet ass, though.”

The wave of revulsion that ripped through her at that was so strong Svetlana nearly swayed on her feet.  He was really going to do this; pretend that what he’d forced her and his own son to do had never happened?  Act like they could just go on as before?

For a moment, she considered the possibility that she could not go through with this; could not keep smiling, could not keep from screaming and then stabbing him with the nearest sharp object she could find.

But of course, she could.  He was just another bad afternoon in a never ending string of them.  She could fake it - after all, she’d been doing it since she was fourteen.

Svetlana’s resolve, however, was quite a bit stronger than her stomach.  Terry began to unbutton his shirt, and his scent wafted towards her.  He smelled of cigarettes, sweat and a faint whiff of aftershave, and the longer he stood there the stronger the smell seemed.

She could feel it coming, her stomach gurgling, and as hard as she tried to repress it, it was building too fast.  She turned and ran for the plastic trash bin in the corner, falling to her knees and heaving over and over.  

“Jesus, what the fuck - “ she heard Terry begin and then he suddenly stopped speaking.

Svetlana closed her eyes and prayed for him to just go, even as she heaved once more.

When it finally stopped, she pulled back, wiping her mouth, then pulling herself to her feet.  She grabbed a bottle of water on the counter and frantically swished the horrible taste from her mouth, spitting it into the trash can.

When Svetlana looked up, Terry was still there, staring.

“Sorry,” she muttered.  “Sick.  Maybe you should go another girl - you don’t want to catch -”

“You’re _pregnant_ ,”  Terry interrupted.  His face was suddenly illuminated, eyes gleaming.  His eyes were traveling up and down, taking in every inch of her, lingering on her swollen breasts before moving over her stomach.  “Should realized it right off; you’ve definitely put on a few pounds.”

Shock took her breath away, and she was frozen, cornered, before her sense of self preservation kicked in. “No,” she shook her head, taking a step back.  “I ate something bad -”  

Terry leapt forward, grabbing her arms so hard she cried out involuntarily.

“Don’t you ever fucking lie to me!”  he nearly spat the words in her face.  “I know a pregnant woman when I see one. I knocked up enough of ‘em.  You weren’t gonna tell me, huh?  Didn’t think I should know I’m gonna be a daddy again?”

A small gasp parted her lips at that.  Terry stared at her hard and sudden rage darkened his features.  

The next thing she knew, he had her up against the wall.  His fingers were around her neck, tightening.  “It’s not fucking mine?  You double-crossing bitch; you had such a goddamn fit about me not wearing a rubber and you been fucking all your tom, dicks and harrys without one?  Think you can just play me like that?”

She could barely speak as his fingers tightened around her throat, but she managed to shake her head frantically.  

“Then who?”  he loosened his grip slightly and just when she started to relax he slammed her against the wall again.  He had her by the throat once more, gripping so hard that she had to gasp for the small amount of air she was able to force into her lungs.  “You gotta have some idea.  Who else you go bareback with, huh?”  he shook her hard when she didn’t answer.  “Fucking tell me!”

“You know,” she managed to gasp out.

Terry continued to glower at her ferociously, clearly not understanding what she was trying to say, and lack of oxygen stole any remaining explanation from her.  Long seconds ticked by and his grip didn’t lessen. Her vision was narrowing, everything turning darker, tiny spots of light bursting before her eyes.

Svetlana's knees had begun to buckle when Terry’s eyes suddenly shot wide open.  “Mickey! Shit,”  he muttered under his breath and released her so fast that she nearly fell to her knees.  She managed to clutch the end of the massage table and keep herself upright, rubbing her aching neck and gasping for breath.

Terry was pacing the room.  “Jesus,”  he turned to face her, all signs of anger gone now.  “Fuck!  Now what the fuck are we gonna do?”

The fact that he thought there was a ‘we’ in this made her skin crawl and had the words spilling out before she could stop them.  “I can make appointment.  Planned Parenthood. This all can go away.”

The last thing she expected was for Terry to whirl on her once again, the rage rekindled, peaked to new heights.  “DON’T YOU EVEN FUCKING THINK ABOUT IT!!”  He was jabbing a stocky finger at her accusingly, spittle flying from his mouth.

“But -”  she tried again.  “I thought - “

“Shut the fuck up!”  Terry was stomping around the room, meaty hands balled into fists.  Svetlana went quiet at that, moving towards the door both to keep herself out of swinging distance and to be able to make a quick exit if necessary.

A minute later, Terry turned towards her once again.  She was amazed by his sudden calm demeanor, the slow smile spreading across his face.  “You know, this could be perfect,”  he stroked his chin as he mused.  “I gotta think about this.”

He stepped towards her and Svetlana flinched back.

“Oh calm down,”  Terry huffed impatiently.  “Wouldn’t have gotten so rough with you if you’d spoken up faster.  Next time don’t let me get that mad,” he reached into his pocket and tossed a few bills in her direction.  “Go get some of those vitamins pregnant women need.  I’m going think this over and figure out how we’re gonna work this shit out.  Once I know, I’ll come find you,”

Just before he reached the door, he turned back towards her, smile gone.  “This kid’s my flesh and blood.  You get rid of it, you might as well sign your own death certificate.  Got it?”

Numbly, she nodded.

With that, he strode out the door.

* * *

“That’s bullshit!”  Dolly was pacing their small living room, still pale after examining Svetlana's bruised neck and listening to everything Svetlana had told her.  “No one can make you have a baby if you don’t want to have one.”

Svetlana shook her head.  “He will kill me,” she said flatly.  “He wants this baby.”

“Honey, there’s things we can do,” Dolly lowered her voice as if the walls themselves were listening. “Look, I can talk to Damian.  He knows people.  He can help you get away.  There are places to go for help.  They’ll protect you.”

“Protect _me_?”  Svetlana repeated in disbelief.  “The illegal immigrant whore?  How will they protect me?  By sending me back to Russia?”

“Lannie, you can’t really believe that no one will help you because you’re here illegally,”  Dolly put her hands on her hips.  “That’s just bullshit people like Sasha feed you so you’ll be too scared to try to leave.”

Svetlana was silent at that.  Dolly had a point, she knew.  People like Sasha and Alex and Bohan...they wanted chattel like her silent, helpless, without options...it was why their passports were taken as soon as they got off the plane, why their introduction to their new countries usually began like hers had, in locked rooms with blacked out windows and constant beatings...fear was their biggest weapon.

And yet Dolly was wrong too.  It was different for her; she’d grown up American, in the arms of her protective family, going to church every Sunday and watching sitcoms that always solved every problem in thirty minutes.  Dolly could walk away from this tomorrow if she wanted to; go home to Texas, go back to school, get a job in a nice office somewhere.  She did not know what it was really like to have absolutely nothing to fall back on.

“Except that you don’t want help, do you?”  Dolly fixed her with an unblinking glance.  “Not help to get an abortion, anyway.  You want to keep it, don’t you?”

It was a few seconds before Svetlana realized she’d wrapped her arms around her midsection protectively.  “I wanted a reason,”  she admitted after a moment.  “Reason to not go through with it.  Now I have one.”

“Oh,”  Dolly exhaled before she took the seat next to Svetlana.  After a few seconds, she reached out and patted her hand.  “It doesn’t change anything, Lannie.  This guy is scary.  Scarier now that a baby’s gonna be in the mix.”

Svetlana nodded slowly.  “I know,” she murmured.  She knew Dolly was waiting for the next part of the conversation, the part where all the decisions were made, where Svetlana had a plan.  

But Svetlana had nothing.  Nothing at all except the determination that this child wasn’t going to meet its end at the tip of a needle.  Not that she was fooling herself that she was saving this baby from anything. If she was kind, if she truly wanted to spare this child, she would have done it already.  

But she couldn’t.  She couldn’t go through with it.  Something or someone in this fucked up universe had given her this...a gift.  A tiny spark.  A pinpoint of light in the black.  And she would keep it, she would grow it, she would nurture it, and she would bring it into this world.

There was one thing she did know, one promise she could make right now, if only to herself.

This child would be loved.   

He or she wasn’t asking for her to be too weak to give it up.  They didn’t ask to be ushered screaming into this twisted, fucked up bit of world she lived in.  The least she could do was give her child that, the promise that no one would look at them with the revulsion that her mother had gazed at her with. This child would have warmth and light and gentle arms to rock them to sleep.

Maybe they wouldn’t be hers.  Maybe she’d look at the screaming, red-faced infant in that first second after giving birth and feel nothing.  Maybe it would be worse.  Maybe she’d feel sick.  Maybe she’d feel hate. And if that was so, she’d walk the world if she had to until she found a loving pair of hands and a home for her child.  Terry could beat her to death for it afterwards, when it was too late to do anything about it.  

This was more than a promise she was making to her unborn child.  It was a sacrament.  And she would keep it no matter who got in her way.

* * *

The next afternoon, it was business as usual at the Spa...most of them were sitting around the waiting room, waiting, unsurprisingly.

Sasha looked up when the door chime sounded, wrinkling her nose at the shaggy haired, barely out of his teens boy swaggering through, tugging up his sagging, stained jeans absently.

“Can I help you?”  Sasha’s voice was barely polite; the boy looked like he couldn’t even afford a hamburger, much less a handjob.

“Sah-vet…?  Aw, fuck it.  Point me to the ruskie ho my dad sent me for,”  the boy shoved his hands in his pockets, tapping his foot impatiently.

“Ah,” Understanding dawned on Sasha’s face before she turned to nod towards Svetlana.  “It’s for you.”

Slowly, Svetlana crossed the floor to join the boy, heart heavy with dread.  He had to be another one of Terry’s sons.

“Hey,” the boy greeted her, spitting on the floor before he continued.  “Dad wants to talk to you at the house, pronto.  Let’s go.”

“Lannie,”  Dolly looked up from where she was sitting, and Svetlana saw the alarm on her face.  She shook her head at Dolly silently, and followed the boy out the door, resigned.  Ready to learn her fate.

* * *

She was getting married.

It was the first thing Terry had said when she’d walked through the door, as if it was a foregone conclusion.  Her consent was apparently not required.

For a horrible moment, she’d thought he’d meant to him, and her heart had nearly shattered with relief when she realized he was referring to his son instead.  Knowing what had happened to Terry’s first two wives, she had no desire whatsoever to become number three.  And the boy...she had to stop calling him that if they were to be married; he had a name...didn’t seem to be as bad as his father, at least not at the moment.

It was a terrible irony that she was sitting on the same couch, though her husband to be was pressed as far to the opposite end of the couch as he could go.  His face was the unhealthy color of cottage cheese that had passed its expiration date.  He had not looked at her once.

“We’ll do it at the VFW,”  Terry was telling them, smiling widely.  “Already called them.  Saturday the 19th.”

“That is in two weeks,”  she said, startled.  The boy - Mickey -  glanced at her at last, looking away just as fast.

“We wait any longer than that, and you’re going to be too fat to walk down the aisle,”  Terry was smiling, but she heard the menace behind his words.  His son did too; his eyes flickered over her once again, lightning fast, before they settled on his father.  

“Dad,”  Mickey spoke for the first time and she could hear the protest even in the quiet tone of his voice.  “Look, I’ll take care of the kid.  I’ll get a better job.  She can live with us.  I don’t have to - I’m only 18 -.”

They both knew he’d said the wrong thing as soon as the words left his mouth.  Svetlana shrank back as Terry leapt forward, his face reddening.  

“I’m giving you _everything_!”  Terry’s rage was sudden and irreversible.  He lunged at his son, pulling him to his feet by his collar, twisting it around his son’s neck.  “Do you know what my father would have done to me if he’d caught some faggot going balls deep in my ass?  He would have put a bullet in my head and fed my body to his pigs!  But instead, I give you a beautiful wife who is going to have your child!  I am giving you a chance to be normal, and you’re going to take it and be grateful for it, or I swear by all that’s holy -”  he stopped abruptly.

Mickey was white-faced, shaking.  Terry released him, and he fell back, stumbling into the couch and then sitting down heavily.  “Dammit, Mickey,”  Terry was breathing heavily, and it seemed to take a colossal effort for him to unclench his fists.  “We are family.  That is everything.  Not some freckle-faced fag who won’t give you anything but a disease. _Us_.  Right here.  Now I’m giving you a chance to start fresh, put this all behind us.  I’m trying to do you better than my father would have done me, don’t you get that?  And you - you don’t even appreciate - you can’t even be -”  his voice was rising again.  

“I am, Dad,”  Mickey’s words were hard to understand, muffled as he stared down at his feet.  “I am grateful, Dad. I’ll...I’ll do it.”

“You fucking better!  Otherwise, you ain’t no fucking son of mine, you hear that?”  Terry was still fuming.  Abruptly, he got up, storming from the room, disappearing through a doorway.   She heard another distant door slam.

“Shit,”  Mickey muttered under his breath,  He was rubbing his eyes with his fingers, staring down at the carpet.  HIs neck was still red and raw looking.  Soon it would bruise and they’d have matching marks, put there by the same hand.  Engagement rings of a sort.  

“I - “ Svetlana began and stopped, no idea what she wanted to say.  Something comforting, maybe.

Maybe it was really more for her.  She wanted _him_ to say something.  Stop peeking under his lashes at her like she was the monster in the corner of his bedroom. Tell her they could get through this somehow.  That being stuck together wasn’t the end of the world the way it felt right now.

He didn’t look her way or even seem like he was aware of her abortive attempt at speech.  With every breath she took, the room seemed to shrink, closer and darker around them.  

She took a deep breath and tried again.  

“I will be a good wife to you,” she managed at last.

Now he did look at her, shock quickly melting into a disgust so distinct it twisted his lips.  A second later he was on his feet, striding away.  Another door slammed, and she was on her own.

Svetlana looked around again at the scarred walls, at the weak sunlight that turned dusty and gray with the effort it took to shine through the grimy windows.

She’d never felt more trapped in her life.

* * *

“You're getting married.”

Svetlana nodded.  She was sitting on the couch that evening, flanked by Dolly and Arian.  She’d been deeply relieved to be able to go home, back to her own little place, glad that Terry and Mickey did not seem to be in any hurry for her to move in.  The more time she’d spent in that house, the more ready she’d been to scale the walls and throw herself over the nearest windowsill just to escape.  The fact that soon she’d be there full time was something she was refusing to contemplate at the moment.

Across from them, Damian sat in their rickety old easy chair, the six-pack he’d bought sitting forgotten on the coffee table between them.  “Pregnant too,”  he added.  He paused to yank a beer out of its plastic chokehold, popping the tab and taking a long drink before continuing.  “And it’s not even this Terry guy who’s the dad...it’s his son??”

“When were you with his son?”  Arian demanded, opening her own beer.  “You have been seeing this guy and not even telling us?”

“Not seeing him,”  Svetlana shook her head.  “Just the one time.”

The three of them continued to look deeply confused for a long moment before Dolly suddenly gasped, looking faintly ill.  “Oh my God, really?  That day that -”  she broke off.

Damian continued to look confused until Dolly flashed him a significant look and then he nearly inhaled his next swallow up his nose instead.  “Are you fucking kidding me?  That day I drove you?  So what...one day this Terry guy just decides to invite you over for a father/son double dip?”  Damian looked incredulous.

“Was not exactly like that,”  Svetlana twisted a lock of hair around her finger.

“How was it then?”  Arian asked, sitting back on the couch and idly twisting off the tab of her beer can.

Svetlana stood up, moving to the window and looking out.  “If I tell you, you promise not to say anything?”

She had their interest now, all three of their heads shot up and there was eager nodding in tandem.

So she went back to the couch, popped the top of her own beer, ignoring Damian’s stare, and told them, in as few words as possible, about what had happened that day with Terry and Mickey.  

There were several moments of stunned silence when she was done, before Dolly broke it.

“That,” she said flatly, opening another beer.  “Is fucked up.  His own father did that to him?  And now he’s trying to what?  Marry him off to degayify him?”

“Is that real word?”  Svetlana demanded.  “Never mind.  And no...well... maybe.  I don’t know,” she drained the rest of her beer.

“Man, I thought I’d heard some twisted shit since I’ve been here but that takes the cake,”  Damian added.

Svetlana didn’t even bother to try to translate that one.  “Do you think it will work?” she addressed Dolly, since Arian and Damian looked too gobsmacked to answer.  “Marrying me.  If he likes boys, will it fix him?  I mean, if I am…”  she shuddered at the thought but forced herself to say it anyway.  “Available?”

“Oh honey, he’s not broken!  He can’t just stop being gay,”  Dolly patted her knee.

“Why not?”  Svetlana demanded.  “If it means his father does not beat him to death; if it means he has normal life and can raise his child, why can’t he stop?”

“Besides,  who says he is really gay?”  Arian chimed in.  “All you know is he fucked one guy.  Teenage boys will stick it in anything.”

Dolly shook her head impatiently.  “Oh come on, you two, you don’t really think he’s fucking around with boys just because he’s horny, do you?  All guys are horny.  Most guys wouldn’t suck another guy’s dick for a million bucks.  Right, Damian?”

Damian snorted.  “Speak for yourself.  I’d suck a dick for a case of Top Ramen most days. But that don’t make me gay, it makes me a busted ass college student.”  

“You are in college?”  Svetlana said, surprised enough to change the subject, at least momentarily.  

“Yeah.  Sophomore.  Communications major,”  Damian grinned at both Svetlana and Arian’s expressions.  

Svetlana had recovered her equilibrium by then.  “Why you work for Sasha then?”  she demanded.  

Damian shrugged.  “Needed a job to cover the gaps my financial aid doesn’t.  Beats flipping burgers for minimum wage,” he said.  After a minute, his grin faded.  “I mean, I thought it would.  It was just like...a lark, you know?  Spend a year or two working security for a chick-pimp, hang out with some hookers, like a funny story I could tell people over drinks.  I didn’t realize all the shit I was gonna see.   I guess I didn’t know…”  he trailed off.

“You did not know we were people?”  Svetlana’s mouth quirked.  

Damian looked away, studying the surface of the coffee table.  After a moment, he cleared his throat, checking the time.  “Arian, I’m your escort to your bachelor party gig tonight - we’d better get going.”

Dolly watched the two of them leave, waving them off with a cheery smile, but Svetlana sensed the undercurrent of jealousy just below the surface, and it made her sigh.  So, it was really like that for Dolly and Damian...at least on Dolly’s side.  She had to wonder if Dolly realized what a fine line she was truly walking.

“Are you really going to go through with it?”  Dolly’s question was so close to what Svetlana was thinking that she jumped, belatedly noticing that Dolly had closed the door and was standing in front of her.

She bit her lip.  Thinking about Dolly and Damian had been a nice but too momentary break; now she was stuck once contemplating her own snarled future.

“What choice do I have?”  she finally asked.  

Dolly shook her head in response.    “Hon, I wish there was something I could do for you.”  

Svetlana shook her head, chuckling slightly despite herself.  “You are very American,” she said after a moment.

“Excuse me?  That supposed to be an insult?”  Dolly put her hands on her tiny waist, looking up at Svetlana indignantly. “I was born and raised in Texas by a family who had Republican Pride stickers on their family van and legitimately cried when we sang along to The Star Spangled Banner before my brother’s football games.  You do not want to go there with me.”

Svetlana shook her head.  “I mean, you think things should end up like in the movies.  Everything needs to be apple pie, your team wins the big game and always happy endings.  No such thing. Shitty things happen.  Life goes on.”

“Yeah, well…”  Dolly sighed.  “I hope this works out for you, Lannie.  I really do.”

“Yes,”  Svetlana said, more to herself.  “Me too.”

* * *

“I need money.”

Svetlana took a deep breath, steeling herself to take in Terry’s reaction to her words.  The man had stopped by that afternoon to give her some information about the time of the ceremony.  Now they were standing outside Garden Springs, shivering slightly in the rising wind.  

“What?” he narrowed his eyes at her, the beginning of anger creeping into his features.  The sight chilled her blood, but she fought to maintain her poker face.  If she didn’t make a stand now, Terry would make her life in his house unbearable, she knew that without question.

“ _Money_ ,” she enunciated the word slowly.  “I am doing what you ask. You want happy bride for your son.  This bride needs dress, cake, bridesmaids.  Real wedding costs real cash,” she held out her hand.

“Once a money grubbing whore, always a money grubbing whore,”  Terry snapped, digging into his pocket, but she saw the smile playing around his mouth and her shoulders slumped in relief.  He did want this, badly.  And as long as she helped him get it, he considered her on his side.  

Svetlana looked down at the bills he’d placed in her open palm, raised her eyebrows, and waited, refusing to withdraw it.

“Are you shitting me?”  Terry burst out, and thumbed through his wallet once more, extracting the rest of the cash in there and slapping it into her palm.  “Satisfied?”

“For now,”  she shrugged.  

“You’d better be, and you’d better make sure it covers everything,”  Terry snapped.  “Food, fees, the hall rental, all of it!”

“You want me to do all that?”  she said, surprised and a little alarmed.  

“I just gave you all my fucking money, didn’t I?”  Terry complained, returning his now empty wallet to his pocket.  “What, you can’t make a few fucking phone calls?  I gotta take care of everything?”

The way that he was glaring at her was a challenge; if she gave in, let him control this, he’d consider it carte blanche that he was in charge of everything.  

“No, it’s fine,”  she said quickly.  “I know what I am doing.  I can plan wedding by myself.”

Satisfied, Terry gave her a short nod, turned, and headed up the sidewalk.

* * *

“I can’t plan wedding by myself,”  Svetlana confessed to Dolly once she was back inside.  They’d secreted themselves in the furthest corner of the waiting room where they could talk more privately.  “I do not know anything about this.  What do I do?  How do I start?”

“Sugar, don’t worry about a thing.  I got this,”  Dolly smiled confidently.  “Just tell me what I’m working with and we’ll figure it out.”

“You are sure?”

Dolly nodded emphatically.  “I’ve done it a whole bunch of times. Last minute nuptials were my specialty.  Church going communities are big on those...gotta keep up appearances.  I did a couple of cousins, a few girls at school...my favorite was the minister’s daughter.  If I could strap Trixie Gardner’s six month pregnant ass into a white dress that made her daddy believe she stayed a good girl until her wedding night, I can definitely organize your little shindig.”

Svetlana breathed a sigh of relief.  “Thank you.”

“ ‘Course,”  Dolly shrugged.  Her eyes danced away from Svetlana, looking so deliberately around the room that it couldn’t be more obvious she had something on her mind.  

“What?”  Svetlana poked her shoulder impatiently.

“Well…”  Dolly suddenly grinned and to Svetlana’s surprise, her friend’s cheeks were suddenly pink.  “I may be bringing a date.”

“Damian?”  Svetlana asked, unsurprised.

“Yeah!”  Dolly moved closer to her, lowering her voice even more.  “I mean, things are kinda...you know - starting to happen with us.  I kept thinking he’d lose interest after he got laid a couple of times, but he asked me to go out to dinner with him tonight and I’ve already sucked his dick, so he can’t just be looking for some free head.  So, I think maybe I have a boyfriend.  What do you think?”

Svetlana shrugged.  “I don’t know anything about that bullshit.”

Dolly was quiet for a minute.  “You really don’t, do you?  God, about to get married and you’re more of a babe in the woods than that damn Trixie ever was.  Lannie, haven’t you ever wanted one?  A boyfriend, I mean.”

Svetlana scoffed loudly.  “Not when I’m off the clock.”

Dolly’s gaze narrowed contemplatively.  “How about a girlfriend?”

It was more the furtive tone of Dolly’s voice than the content of her words that had Svetlana swinging back around to stare at her.  

“What are you saying?”  she demanded when Dolly flushed and looked away in response to her stare.  “You think _I_ am gay?”

“Well, it’s not like it’s a big deal!”  Dolly said indignantly, her cheeks crimson.  “It’s just...I never seen you get excited over a guy, and then I kinda wondered about you and -”  she suddenly broke off, looking alarmed at what she almost said.  “Never mind.”

Svetlana frowned as Dolly’s slip caused a pin puncture in the wall that she kept her loss of Katya stored behind.  The rest of what Dolly had said she disregarded immediately as unimportant.  

Apparently Dolly thought Svetlana’s quiet was resentment over her assumption.  “You know, I’m not the only one who’s wondered about you, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”  Svetlana said impatiently.

“Look,”  Dolly nodded over the corner, where a group of Sasha’s women sat, flipping through magazines and gossiping.  One of them, a firmly built blonde with shorter, slightly spiked hair and a nose ring, didn’t seem to be paying attention.  Her dark green eyes were fixed directly on Svetlana.  When Svetlana met her gaze, she didn’t drop her eyes right away.  Instead, her lips curved into a smile, her tongue darting out to lap at the corner of her mouth before she finally looked away.  One eye looked reluctant to stop staring, staying fixed on Svetlana a moment longer than its twin.

“Who the fuck is that and why is she staring at me?”

Dolly gasped and immediately began to giggle.  “Oh, Lannie, you really don’t pay any kind of attention, do you?  That’s Nika, dummy!”

“She new?”  Svetlana furrowed her brow, distantly remembering now that she’d seen the other woman before, a few times.

“Yeah,  about six months ago, Miss Oblivious.  And she’s had her eye on you for weeks!”  Dolly burst into a fit of giggles at that which didn’t rescind until she saw Svetlana’s blank stare.  “That’s a joke, silly.  Because of her eye?  It likes to stay in one place? See, it’s a lazy eye...,” Dolly sighed at Svetlana’s lack of reaction.  “Oh, never mind,”  she sighed huffily. “My puns are just wasted on you english as a second language types.  Look, why don’t you just go over there and say hi?”

Svetlana swung around to look at Dolly in exasperation.  “Why?  I am getting married!”

“You’re having a modern day arranged marriage to a gay man,”  Dolly snorted.  “You’re gonna be a legal beard.  Somehow, I don’t think the conventional rules apply to you two,” she continued to look hopeful until Svetlana’s expression told her that it wasn’t happening.  “Fine.  I just thought maybe you could stand a little fun.  Never mind then.  Let’s talk wedding plans,”  Suddenly her expression brightened.  “Hey, I get to pick bridesmaids, right?”

“Sure,” Svetlana shrugged.  “Why?”

“No reason,”  Dolly beamed brightly.  “Let’s talk dresses, shall we?”  

* * *

She should have known, Svetlana thought to herself as she looked over her group of bridesmaids, crowded into Damian’s car on the way to the shopping center.  There was Dolly and Arian, of course, and one of Sasha’s oldest ‘girls’, a forty something woman named Bette that acted as more of a den mother to the rest of them, plus Raisa (Svetlana had gritted her teeth so hard when Dolly had announced her choices that she was pretty sure she needed to see a dentist now).  And last but not least, there was Nika.

Nika was crammed into the seat next to her, something that Svetlana was sure Dolly had planned.  And she was also pretty sure that despite the close quarters, Nika didn’t need to sit quite that close, her skirt riding up and bare thigh pressed into Svetlana’s leg.  Svetlana tried to ignore her, looking out the window, but Nika was persistent, leaning forward.

“I have not seen husband to be,”  she husked...her low vocals reminded Svetlana of a contented cat purring.  “Not even once this past week.  Thought maybe he would be more involved.”

“No husband wants to help shop for wedding dress,” Svetlana snapped back,

Nika shrugged, unperturbed by Svetlana’s tone.  “If it were me, I’d want to be more involved.  I would be interested in anything you are doing,”  she shifted once more and her fingers drifted downward to trail lightly across Svetlana’s leg.  

Svetlana didn’t bother to hide her eyerolling.  Nika was more obvious than a flashing billboard.  Impatiently, she swatted the other woman’s hand away, just as the car came to a stop.

“Everybody out!”  Dolly was immediately marshalling her troops, indicating the small bridal shop in front of them.   “Let’s make this fast and cheap; we’re burning daylight, ladies!”

Two saleswomen looked up, eyes widening as they saw the small parade that was streaming through the bridal shop entrance.  Svetlana watched their overly plucked eyebrows rise higher and higher, particularly as they watched Dolly leading the calvary in her plunging leopard skin dress.

“Looks like the circus is in town,”  Svetlana heard one of them mutter, none too quietly, and her friend sputtered with laughter.

Svetlana clenched her teeth, starting towards them, but Dolly beat her to it, charging over to the counter and standing on her tiptoes to freeze the salesgirls in her brown-eyed gaze.  

“Oh no, y’all aren’t even gonna try to ‘Pretty Woman’ us out of here.  I’ve got a shotgun wedding to plan, a week and a half to do it, and we’re paying in cash.  I don’t have time for your attitude, so drop it, and stick to nodding and smiling, ok?“  

The two of them exchanged an uncomfortable glance before one of them, a dishwater blonde wearing far too much bright pink lipstick, plastered a false smile and started to walk around the counter.  “So what can I help you ladies find today?”  she asked.  

Dolly threw up a tiny hand in response.  “You can go right back around that counter, that’s what.  When we need your substandard service, we’ll call you.  Now where are your sales racks?”

The employees, visibly flushed now,  managed to de-wrinkle their noses long enough to gesture towards the discount racks.

There was an immediate descent upon the wedding dresses, Dolly and the rest of them seizing dresses and shouting their opinions.  Svetlana ignored them, pushing her way past them to a less frilly selection in the back.  She thumbed through it impatiently, each lacy, glossy cream colored frock less appealing than the last.

Svetlana’s eye was caught by the simple white dress nearly buried towards the rack.  She picked it up and held it up towards herself.  It was short, and if it fit right, it was going to be skintight. She turned it to the side, observing the cut out panels.

“What do you got there?”  Dolly pushed her way through their loud companions.

Silently, Svetlana held it up for her perusal.

“Hmm…”  Dolly tilted her head to the side, observing thoughtfully, but any comments that she was going to make were intercepted by Bette, who’d come up behind her.  “That’s very Las Vegas.”

Confused, Svetlana looked at Dolly.  

“She means tacky, hon.”

“Oh!”  Svetlana and Dolly exchanged looks.  “ _Perfect!_ ”  they said simultaneously.

Bette shrugged.  “Hey, flaunt it while you still got it, I say.  No chance you’re going to ever be able to fit into something that small again after you squeeze out the kid,”  she turned to gesture towards the front counter.  “Hey, we need a fitting room!”

The blonde saleswoman hurried over, only to stop short when she saw the hanger dangling from Svetlana’s fingers.  Her nose wrinkled right back up, her mouth becoming as tight and as sour as if she’d just sucked a lemon as she sensed her commission drying up.  “That is not actually a wedding dress,” her tone dripped patronizingly.  “It’s more like something one might change into for the reception party afterwards.  I can show you something more traditional.”

“Hey!”  Dolly snapped.  “Nod and smile, remember?  Now take my girl to the dressing room and when you come back, you can show us bridesmaids dresses.”

Svetlana didn’t put much stock in fate, but it did seem, once she’d tried it on, that she and her discount rack prize were meant to be.  They certainly were more compatible than she and her husband to be.  When she exited the dressing room to delighted squeals from Dolly, it nearly sealed the deal.  The last bit of incentive she needed to decide for sure came in the form of Nika’s widened eyes, the small gasp of breath she took in when she saw Svetlana turning in circles to show the dress off.  Now _that,_ unlike Nika's weak excuse for flirting, seemed real.

The bridesmaids’ dresses that Dolly ended up choosing were barely acceptable, cheap fabric in a garish shade of pink, but their limited funds were rapidly running out and it was the only option that could be hemmed quickly enough.  The debate on whether there would be straps or not took up the rest of the afternoon.  Svetlana couldn’t help but feel surprised at how quickly absorbed she was becoming in all the details...wedding planning as almost, in its own way, fun.

For all his grumbling, Terry seemed quite relieved to hand the reins over to her, as long as she agreed to invite anyone he wanted.  It wasn’t as though she had a huge guest list anyway - Damian and the girls were the only people she had to invite.  Out of the desire to not have her kneecaps broken for being disrespectful, she’d invite Sasha too though she knew without asking that Sasha would never willingly attend a Milkovich function.

Svetlana was so busy the next few days that she thankfully had no time to think about the future, or what would happen after the wedding. That could only be a good thing; the few times she’d seen Mickey, just in passing, the hollows under his eyes had grown deeper, his face more lined and weary.  If she thought too much about what lay ahead for both of them, her face might just match his.

* * *

 

The day of the wedding came far faster than either of them were ready for.  Svetlana was up with the hot, sticky dawn, helping Dolly wrangle the rest of the bridesmaids and force-feeding a hungover Arian half a pot of coffee until she was conscious enough to be functional.  

When she walked into the VFW, the first thing she saw was the handpainted sign, _Mickey + Svetlana 4EvER!_ and nearly split her side laughing.  Dolly grinned at her response.  “I was hoping you’d like it.  Your new sister in law to be helped us with it.  Seems like a sweet girl.”

Svetlana mused over that silently.  She’d barely had a full conversation with Mickey’s sister, Mandy, and the lingering impression that the girl had left in her wake was that of barely banked aggression and a scowl that matched her brother’s.  Sweet was not the word Svetlana would have used to describe her, but then again, Dolly did have a way of bring out the best in people.

The hall filled up rapidly...almost all of Sasha’s girls were there, though, as expected, Sasha herself did not make an appearance, nor did her brother, Ivan, or any of their other minions.  Terry also had a sizeable crowd; lots of scowling tattoo’d men about his own age, packing concealed weapons underneath their overstuffed dress shirts and bragging about the good old days.  His other sons were there too, but if Mickey had invited anyone who’d meant anything to him personally, she’d seen no sign of them.

She’d seen no sign of him, either, though Mandy, when requested to find him, came back to report that he was in the basement and would be up soon.  Svetlana felt a mixture of relief and disappointment at that; in some ways she wanted him to pull out, listen to his tires screech as he raced out of the parking lot and released her from this farce.  The more practical part of her whispered in her ear that she needed him; getting married was the best way to give this child some stability.  With a legal, American wedding, she could become a U.S. citizen.  And once she was a citizen, she could do something else with her life, go back to school, maybe, get a job that didn’t involve wrangling penises all day.  She could be a real mother.

Mickey didn’t make an appearance until the last possible second, wearing a sick looking smile, as he watched her stroll down the aisle towards him.  When she got to the altar and reached for his hand, he silently resisted so much that she ended up grabbing just his tattoo’d fingers and holding them in her tight grip. It was like having a silent showdown with a stubborn toddler.

Mickey disappeared once again almost as soon as he planted a reluctant peck on her lips.  But Svetlana had no time to linger on his absence; Dolly and Co were immediately surrounding her, showering her with congratulations.  Then when the music started, Nika pulled her aside to dance.  Svetlana aimed a cautious look at her father in law before agreeing, but Dolly, showing the true spirit of someone who knew how to take one for the team, gamely invited Terry to partner her, effectively distracting him.  

In between dances, there were drinks.  Lots of drinks.  As the bride, she was feted over and over with beers, glasses of cheap wine, and red solo cups full of sweet tasting slush.  It wasn’t long before all thoughts of Mickey were driven out of her mind; Svetlana was more than pleasantly intoxicated by the time she slumped down at one of the folding tables, picking idly at a plate of food Bette had pressed into her hand.

“Would you look at that,”  Dolly had joined her, and she jerked her head towards the bar.  “Howdy Doody is here.”

“Howdy Doody,”  Svetlana tried to puzzle it out.  “Howdy is how you say hello in Texas and Doody is shit.  Hello Shit?”

“No!”  Dolly started to laugh.  “Howdy Doody was this old timey tv star type.  Redhead, freckles, just like your boy over there.”  

“Why is there a tv star named Hello Shit?”  Svetlana demanded.

“Oh, darlin’, you are a treasure,”  Still chuckling, Dolly patted her hand.  “Want to tell me what’s going on though, why this boy has been following you all over town?”

“What?”  Dolly’s words were finally registered.  Svetlana spun around to see who Dolly was pointing at, and her blood went cold when she saw him.  Orange Boy was leaning against the bar, drinking out of a red cup.  Even as she watched, he stumbled, barely managing to catch himself in time before he fell.  He laughed quietly, bitterly, to himself before taking another deep drink of what she was sure wasn’t soda pop.

“Shit,”  she swore under her breath.

“Lannie,”  Dolly tugged on her arm impatiently.  “You and this freckle face cutie got a little something going on the side here?  That why we keep finding him around every corner lately?”

“No,”  Svetlana folded her arms across her chest, glowering.  “He is not here for me.”

Dolly looked bewildered for a minute, then understanding lit her eyes and she clapped her hands over her mouth.  “Oh my God!”  she lowered them after a moment to stage whisper.  “This is your husband’s fuck buddy?!”  she peered once again over her shoulder and shrugged.  “Well, he’s cute, I’ll give him that.”

Svetlana glared at her before turning back to shoot visual daggers at the boy.  “I cannot believe he would come here.  To my _wedding_!”  she felt the explosion building behind her eyes.  “Has Mickey seen him?”

“I don’t think so,”  Dolly shrugged.  “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he doesn’t.  You grab your hubby and tell him it’s time to start the honeymoon.  I’m going to keep Howdy Doody occupied.”

That mission was more easily accomplished than she’d expected; Svetlana found her groom sitting on the back porch of the VFW, getting his two sizes too big tux filthy as he smoked a cigarette and looked morosely at the alley.  When she told him it was time to go, he couldn’t seem to wait to get out of there, barely giving her time enough to throw her bouquet, which she’d deliberately aimed at a beaming Dolly.

The honeymoon was a surprise laid on both of them that morning by a smiling Terry, who’d tossed an envelope, some brochures, and his car keys at the two of them, explaining that the ‘family’ had gotten together to set it up.  

“Where are we going?”  Svetlana finally asked after several miles of driving in excruciating silence.

“Baraboo,” he snapped.

“Where?”

Mickey sighed heavily.  “It’s in Wisconsin.”

“Oh,”  she considered this for a minute.  “Where?”

“Jesus Christ, you’d never pass a naturalization test,”  Mickey snapped, his fingers clutching the wheel tightly.  “Have you ever even fucking seen a map of the United States?”

“Oh, well, excuse me.  Nobody gave me geography lesson before they smuggled me in to be sex slave in this great, free land of yours,”  she snapped back.  

Mickey sighed.  “Wisconsin’s a fucking state.  One of fifty.  You know...a state,”  he took one hand off the wheel to make an exaggerated rectangle in the air.  “Big, big piece of land that gets divided up into much smaller parts, which all get their own names.  We call these cities and towns.  In Wisconsin, there’s a shithole of a tourist trap town called Baraboo, with shitty motels and shitty overpriced attractions, and that is where we are going to spend our shitty honeymoon.  Got all that?”

“What, am I supposed to be taking notes?  Is there test later?”  she fired back at him.

“You’re the one who fucking asked!”  

Svetlana had to snap her jaw audibly closed to force herself not to respond.  Instead, she reached over and turned on the radio, flipping through stations until she found one that blared electronic music that made her new husband’s eye twitch.  Satisfied, she turned it up, enjoying his grimace in response.

* * *

Baraboo turned out to be...interesting.

There were clowns everywhere.  A clown statue heralded the entrance of their motel, which Svetlana had to admit to herself, was indeed pretty shitty.  Clown painting and statues adorned the lobby as well and the carpet below their feet was brightly patterned with great big red noses and enormous crimson lipped grins.   Even their room wasn’t immune; the bedcover was striped, like a circus tent, another clown painting hung over their bed, and when Mickey threw their suitcase on the bed, there was an immediate shrieking laugh that filled the air, making them both jump a mile.  After they’d calmed down, Mickey furiously tore apart the bed to find a worn, plastic clown doll, shiny plastic face decorated with another giant grin,  pull string hanging from its back, shoved underneath the covers.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”  Mickey shook it to try to get it to stop laughing and when that didn’t work, he splintered its head against the bedside table.   That didn’t help the creep factor at all; the impact made the toy’s voicebox go off again, but this time the laugh was slow and eerily distorted, and the fact that half of its shattered face still wore that unnatural grin made it more terrifying than ever.  

“Here, give it to me,”  Svetlana yanked the doll from Mickey’s grip, opened their door and marched down the hallway, where she stuffed the doll in an ashcan.  Its broken, slow laugh followed her down the hall back to their room.  

When she walked back in, Mickey was trying to light a cigarette but the slight tremble in his fingers wasn’t making it easy.

“Let me,” she took the lighter from him and lit the cigarette.  “What is wrong with you?”

“I fucking hate clowns,”  Mickey exhaled a cloud of smoke.  “You ever seen that movie with the kids and the TV and the clown doll under the bed?  That shit fucked me up when I was little.  Feel like I’m about to do the live re-enactment.”

“Oh,” Since she hadn’t actually seen that movie, she could not think of anything to say.  So she sat down at the small two person table in the corner of the room, dropping her overnight bag at her feet.  Silently, she lit a cigarette of her own.

“So…”  MIckey said finally when the awkward silence became unbearable.  He jerked his head towards the bed.  “Wanna fuck?”

Svetlana didn’t try to restrain her visible shudder at the thought.   She couldn’t even imagine why he was asking her when the tone of his voice suggested he’d rather douse his own penis in acid.  Maybe he was expecting her to give his father progress reports.  “I have better idea,”  She opened her bag, and with a flourish, produced a bottle of her favorite vodka.  “We can do something we might actually enjoy.”

Mickey stared at the bottle before he looked back at her, meeting her eyes for what may have been the first time in the last several days.  His lips quirked into a cautious almost-smile.

They didn’t talk much over the next couple of hours, mostly just grunted at each other and passed the bottle back and forth while watching some shitty crime drama on the static-y tv.  Still, it was quite an improvement over the tense car ride.  

When the bottle ran dry, she could feel the little bit of a connection they’d made drying up right along with it.

“Guess that’s it,”  Mickey mumbled, throwing it in the trash can.  “Want to get some sleep?”

“No,”  Svetlana stood up, looking out the window at the newly darkened sky.  “Is too early.  Think we need a refill.”

Mickey snorted, looking at her with bleary eyes.  “Half a bottle of vodka ain’t enough for you?”  He was intoxicated enough to not seem to realize that she’d been heavily dosing her drinks with water.  As a result, she was pleasantly buzzed, but not really drunk yet - he was the one who’d consumed the majority.

“How much money you have?”  she asked him.

Mickey dug into his pockets, pulled out a few crumpled bills, and tossed them on the bed before falling back in his chair, leaving her to count it.  Twenty-three dollars.

“Enough for something,”  Svetlana tossed the pitiful wad back at him.   “Let’s go find liquor store.”

“Nah.  Should get you something to eat,”  Mickey’s head was back, eyes closed.  His words were slurred.  “Probably not good for you, drinking that much on an empty stomach, being knocked up and all.”

Svetlana looked over at him in surprise, but his eyes were still closed and he didn’t notice.  

“Go get something,” he added, and she frowned, realizing he didn’t mean to accompany her.  “Bring me back some pork rinds if you got any money left.”

“I have way we can get more,”  she prodded him with her foot until he opened his eyes, looking annoyed.

“What?  You’re gonna do that shit _here_?”  

Svetlana glared at Mickey when she realized what he was insinuating.  “No, idiot, I am not turning tricks for lunch money.  This is something different, but I need partner.  So come on.”

With that, she stood, heading towards the door, watching out of the corner of her eye to see if he would follow.  

A few reluctant seconds later, he did.

***

“So, tell me what we’re doing again,”  Mickey scratched his nose, looking at the garish neon sign above the bar they were standing in front of.  Another clown statue was just to the entrance’s left; she noticed he was avoiding looking at that.

“Arian and I did this all the time before we went to work for Sasha.  You have to have partner to do this right.  We pick man who has wedding ring.  Put the moves on him, take him some place private.  Get hands on his cell phone, then partner comes out, takes picture, and we threaten to call wife if he doesn’t pay us.  Easy money.  They never call cops...what would they say?”

“That’s fucked up,” Mickey tilted his head, considering. “Let’s do it,”  he grinned suddenly, and she was struck by how much more likable her child bride was when he wasn’t pouting.

“I will go in first.  Wait five minutes and go to the bar and order drink,” she instructed.  “When you see me leave, follow.”

Mickey nodded absently, not appearing to pay attention, but she had a feeling he was a quick study for this type of thing.  He’d better be, anyway...if she ended up seeing Wisconsin cock because her new husband was slow on the draw she was going to make him be the bait for the next one.  There had to be a gay bar somewhere in this shitty place.

With that pleasing thought, she headed inside, not looking this time to see if Mickey would really follow her.  She supposed at some point they were just going to have to trust each other.  Or this was going to be an unbearably long trip, in more ways than one.

* * *

The two of them were breathless with laughter and exertion when they burst through their motel room door two hours later.

“That was close,”  Svetlana managed to gasp after a moment, hands on her knees as she bent over, trying to catch her breath.

“What the fuck happened, anyway?”  Mickey was breathing just as heavily as he stumbled across the room to throw himself on to the bed.  “How did the cops get on to us?”

“We hit three bars,”  Svetlana shrugged.  “Is small town.  Bartenders probably call each other to tell them who to look out for.”

“Yeah, well luckily the local boys in blue don’t move any faster than the ones back at home.  Did you see that fat fucker fall on his ass trying to catch up with us?”  Mickey started laughing again at the memory.  

“Hope he broke his ass like I broke my shoes,” Svetlana said ruefully, taking them off and looking at the busted heels on her soiled pumps.

“Buy another pair,” Mickey said amiably, tossing her a few bills. “Not like you didn't earn it.”  Several beers, cheap burgers, and the adrenaline of scamming horny tourists seemed to have done wonders for his demeanor. “At least we managed to stock up before they caught up with us,”  he extracted the gleaming bottle and sat up to pour a drink.

“I call the first shot,”  Mickey said after he poured it.  “Think I broke a knuckle on that last guy’s face,”  he observed his bruised hand.

“If you’d hit him faster, he would not have time to stick his hand up my dress. Was not up for getting sticky-fingered by the locals,”  Svetlana countered.

Mickey made a face and shoved the shot over to her.    

Then they were off and running.  For every shot, there was a challenge.  At first it was stupid, drunken one-upping...loudest belch, which he won easily, balancing on their toes the longest (she rigged that one by neglecting to tell him about her years of ballet lessons), who came closest to guessing the number of roaches underneath the bathroom sink (another win for Mickey).

But as it grew later and the bottle slowly emptied, the tone of the game turned darker, more confessional.  They found themselves sprawled on the bed, the bottle between them, shot glass forgotten as they passed it back and forth.  The deciding factor on who got to drink now depended on who had the worst story.  The more they drank, the more extreme the stories became.

“Let’s see,”  Mickey rubbed his bleary eyes.  He’d been staring up at the ceiling for several minutes, trying to think of something to counter her story about how, back in Russia, she’d come across a school drawing of her little brother’s taped to the refrigerator, titled My Family, only to discover she wasn’t in it.

“I found this cat,” he said finally.  “Kitten, I guess.  Little, noisy fucker, all scrappy and starving and shit, hiding out in our garage.  I guess I was like, eight or something.  Anyway, we didn’t ever have any pets and I kinda liked it.  So I used to bring it food and shit and it took forever but eventually it started to like me back.  My mom was OK with keeping it, and I thought my dad was too.  But I got in trouble at school and when they called me into the office they started asking me why I was always bruised up and ended up calling Social Services.  Dad got out of it but it really pissed him off.  So, to punish me, he got my cat and just -”  he mimed a stomping foot.

Svetlana flinched violently, muttering an oath in Russian, before she passed him the bottle.  “Maybe you should just have the rest.”

Mickey swallowed and shook his head.  “Aw, come on.  We’re just getting started,” the challenge in his eyes was clear.  

“Fine,”  she dropped back on the pillow, wondering briefly how he’d react if her next story was about his father nearly strangling her to death while questioning the paternity of her unborn child.  Wisely, she decided to skip that one.  “You want to know how I ended up here?  America, I mean.  My father sold me to brothel owner,”  she did some quick calculations in her mind.  “Three hundred dollars, U.S.  He didn’t even get a good price.”

“Fuck,”  Mickey didn’t try to counter this one; just passing her the bottle instead.  “Maybe _you_ should get the rest.”  

She smirked at him as the liquor burned down her throat.  “You are too soft for this game.”

Mickey snorted, snatching the bottle back.  “I’m not the one who was about to throw in the towel over a kitten,”  

“Fine, then, you start the next round,”  she waited.

Mickey was quiet for a moment.  “My mom died when I was twelve.  Overdose  All alone in the bathroom of some crackhouse.  They didn’t find her for hours, on her knees with her face in someone else's piss. Hell of a way to go, huh?”

At a loss for words, Svetlana reached forward hesitantly to put a hand on his shoulder but Mickey squirmed away.  “That’s not the story,” he said impatiently.  “Anyway, we couldn’t afford a big funeral or a burial so Dad had her cremated and we had a big blowout at our house.  Like any other Tuesday, really.  Everybody got fucked out of their heads doing some weird blow mix Dad got from his suppliers.  When we finally came out of it sometime the next day, her ashes were gone.  Never found them.  No idea what happened, who took them or why.   _That’s_ the story,” he reached for the bottle.

“Not so fast,” she pulled it away.  “My friend Katya…”  she hesitated.  ‘Friend’ seemed so inadequate a word.  “She was everything to me.  And she died all alone too, on my bed, with a needle in her arm.  I tried to not let them take her away, but I could not stop them.”

“Fuck,”  Mickey said when she couldn’t continue.  “What did they do with her?”

She shook her head.  “Buried her somewhere, like dog who gets hit by car.  Maybe.  Maybe they - “  she couldn’t finish, horrific images of Katya being cut into pieces, burned into ash, crept into her mind.  Blowing in the wind somewhere with the remnants of Mickey’s mother.

“Sorry,”  Mickey muttered after a moment, watching her expression.  “That’s fucked up,” he indicated the bottle with a flick of his fingers.  “Drink.”

“No,” she pushed it back.  “Bad to lose your mother in that way.  You take it.”

Mickey considered.  “Not much left.  Let’s split it,” he offered and reached for the long neglected shot glass on the table next to them, pouring half the remainder into it before he handed her back the bottle.  “Congratulations,”  he toasted to her.  “In the shitty life department, you definitely win.”

“I don’t know,”  she mused after they tossed down their drinks in unison.  “You are definitely contender.  Besides, I think there’s lot you don’t say.”

Mickey looked away at that, and she knew she was right.  Not that it was a surprise...there was a lot she didn’t say either.  Maybe they were more alike than she’d originally thought.

And with that thought, alternately chilling and comforting, swirling around in her fogged head, she rolled over on her side and fell asleep.

* * *

In a way, Svetlana was almost sorry to say goodbye to Baraboo and Wisconsin when they departed to return to Chicago two days later.  Not that they had done much, rarely even left the motel room except when Svetlana insisted Mickey take her to a terrible magic show that the motel had given them free tickets to as part of their honeymoon package, and then they spent the rest of the night losing most of their ill gotten gains gambling at the local casino.

But still, insulated as they were, just the two of them, she’d gotten a chance to see her husband in a new light.  Not as the scared, sulky manchild who so reluctantly slipped the ring on her finger, or the angry bully she’d secretly feared he might really be underneath all that, a dimly lit reflection of his father.  But someone entirely different than what she’d expected him to be, someone who was still mostly a stranger but who was altogether smarter, harder, and far more complicated than she’d assumed.  There were even moments of kindness, something she’d definitely not counted on, particularly aimed in her direction.  

Altogether, the idea of going back to Chicago, where Terry and Sasha and Carrot Boy and a thousand other influences lay in wait to twist everything all over again, was disheartening.  Svetlana wished, just for a little while, the world would leave them alone.  Give them time to figure everything out on their own.

Mickey was silent the entire drive home, leaving her to wonder if in his own way, he wished for the same thing.

Arriving back at the brown house that she was now expected to call home was beyond depressing.  They walked in to to be greeted by Terry’s smirk and loud innuendos (“I hear that place has vibrating beds!  If she wasn’t already knocked up I’d expect to hear the announcement any day now!”) Svetlana could almost see Mickey withdraw into himself in response, the laughing man she’d shared her secrets with evaporating as quickly as if she’d imagined him.

It was almost a relief to make the excuse that Sasha expected her back at work immediately, to escape the cluttered, smoke filled house that would always belong to Terry only, no matter how many of them lived there.  

Svetlana didn’t return until late that night, and she only did so because she forced herself to, despite the deep temptation of just going back to her old apartment and sleeping in her own bed.  

When she walked into ‘their’ bedroom that night the first thing she noticed was Mickey standing on the far side of the bed, spreading out what looked like a sleeping bag.

“What is this?” she asked him as she tossed her last box on the floor.  

Mickey didn’t answer.  He didn’t even look up.

Svetlana shook her head in exasperation. She didn’t know where this sudden reticence was coming from; they’d slept in the same bed in the motel.  Or….she thought back.  They had both been so drunk both nights that she had no actual memory of going to bed either night.  Whenever she’d woken up, Mickey had either been sprawled in a chair or on the floor, so maybe they hadn’t really slept together after all.

Still, she found herself growing more and more exasperated every time she looked at that sleeping bag.  Mickey was her husband now, and he was acting like a scared little boy who thought she was going to give him cooties.  

The more Svetlana thought about it, the angrier she felt.  By the time she’d gotten undressed for bed, she was fuming.  Turning back to see that Mickey had already climbed into the sleeping bag and was nearly hidden from view only increased it.  Silently, she took back every good thing she’d thought about him.  Who did her too small, too young brat of a husband think he was, treating her this way?  Did he think he was any more appetizing to her than she was to him?  She never asked to be here, an unwelcome intrusion in his space and in his life, and yet here she was.  The least he could do is not act as if she was something filthy, contaminated, that he had to shield himself from.

Svetlana stomped over to the bed, jerking the lamp a little too hard when she went to turn it off.  

The darkness of the unfamiliar room was a wave of unease abruptly dousing her anger.  She hurried to get under the too stiff, too new smelling comforter, now grateful for her brat husband’s presence.  At least she wouldn’t be alone in this unknown black.

It was a relief when her eyes adjusted after a few minutes and she was able to make out some details; the outline of the posters on the wall, the dresser, the rise and fall of Mickey’s shoulders in the sleeping bag next to her.  She watched the ceiling for several long minutes, the shadows dancing in her limited vision,

She could tell by Mickey’s breathing that he wasn’t any closer to sleep than she was.  She wished he’d speak, say something, anything, help them regain a tiny bit of that camraderie they’d found so briefly on their ‘honeymoon.’

“Are you going to see him again?” she asked abruptly.  

“Who?”  Mickey turned away from her, but she heard the trace of nervousness in his voice and sighed impatiently in response.

“You know who.  Your gingerbread man.  You are going to see him still?”

Mickey was silent.

She turned to him and stared at him until he turned reluctantly towards her.  “You know what you are risking.  If you are smart, you forget him.”

“Yeah,”  Mickey was staring up at the ceiling now.  “I know.”

He did know.  She heard it in his voice.  And he would no more give up his orange boy than she could stop the sun from rising.

“We are married now,”  she felt the anger starting to rise again.  “It is better if we don’t try to make life harder for each other.  You get caught seeing him again, it doesn't just go bad for you.”

“I get it, ok?”

Svetlana gritted her teeth, hearing the lie plainly.  “You have to be careful,”  she kept staring at him until reluctantly, he met her eyes again.  “You cannot be so stupid like you were before.  Do not bring him home.  Do not let anyone see.  Do not let your father find out.  If he does, it is not just you he will punish.  Understand?”

“Yeah.  Whatever,”  Mickey’s voice was still truculent, but there was an undercurrent in it, of...relief?  Glee, almost?  She puzzled it out for a minute until she realized why...she’d just given him her permission.

Furious with herself, Svetlana turned over, resisting the urge to punch her pillow. For a couple of days, it felt like she and Mickey were getting somewhere, working towards a future where they didn’t make each other miserable, and one mention of the redhead interloper and now the distance between them was greater than ever.  

That boy was going to ruin everything.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again, with much feeling, to all of you who have stuck with me through my intermittent updating schedule. I hope lengthy chapters make them more worth the wait. I am so, so grateful for all the great support and feedback i've received regarding my interpretation of Svetlana's story, and I'm very much looking forward to continuing now that both Mickey and Ian will be in the mix.
> 
> a very special thanks to the insanely talented zebrawallpaper for all of her incredible beta'ing and support.
> 
> feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated!


	5. Sasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the birth of their child approaches, Svetlana struggles to find common ground with Mickey, but the shadow of Orange Boy seems to dodge their every turn. Meanwhile, she finds that she and Mickey are not the only Milkoviches hiding secrets from Terry, and is forced into a deal with a devil of her own making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for scenes referencing and implying sexual assault

In most houses, at least according to what Svetlana saw on TV, Sunday mornings were for sleeping late, going to church, having a leisurely brunch afterwards and watching whatever big game was playing that weekend.

For the family that she’d married into, Sunday was a test of survival.  It was the day that Terry held court at the dining room table, rising early for once, gathering the family around, not for conversation or bonding, but for a weekly accounting.  Sunday was the day each household member had to prove they’d earned their keep for the week prior; quite literally display what they were bringing to the table and hope that it met with Terry’s approval.

Even for someone who was used to being tagged for sale and dispersed to the highest bidder, Svetlana found the ritual deeply depressing.  Maybe her worth had always been remunerative, but never before had it been so shamelessly on display.  The fact that she wasn’t the only one was no comfort.  Seeing that Terry was perfectly content to put his own children through this bloodless audit on a regular basis was deeply unsettling.  

Today, Terry was content to sit back, letting Mickey take the helm as he watched on, silent but missing nothing.

Mickey impatiently thumbed through the stack of green Svetlana handed him.  “This is all you made yesterday?”  he demanded.

“I give you everything,” she told him quietly, mildly affronted.  It had actually been a good day for her at the Spa; there had been a business convention being held at a hotel a few blocks over, where Sasha had some contacts at the front desk.  As a result, business had been quite brisk.

“That’s like...twelve bucks a wank,”  Mickey was complaining, more to himself than anyone else.

It was more like seventeen, but Svetlana was in no rush to correct his assumptions.  She felt no guilt whatsoever about the percentage she held back, secreting it away in her hidden lockbox.  That money was for their unborn child, for their future.  Her child would never know what it was like to be trapped.  They would have a future where they had choices, and every dollar she saved for them would ensure that.

“Who was at the door?”

Mandy was returning to the table after being interrupted by a knock.  Svetlana didn’t miss the way her eyes danced over to Mickey before she answered her father’s question.

Svetlana was only half listening as she headed over to the table, a cup of coffee in one hand and cradling her stomach with the other.  Lately, the alien inside of her had been kicking up a storm, as if it were tired of waiting to be born and decided to make a break for it prematurely.

She might not have even picked up on the name Mandy spoke, having long forgotten to connect it with the face of the boy she’d tried very hard to forget, if it hadn’t been for Mickey’s reaction.  His tone reeked of deceptive casualness when he asked Mandy if anyone had seen him.

“What do you care?”  Mandy bit back.

Svetlana deliberately closed her ears to the rest of what they were saying.  She would not do this now, would not make herself sick wondering what that look on Mickey’s face could mean, that tone in his voice.  

No, today she would be grateful for small mercies.  She would be glad that Terry had accepted their offerings without flipping over the table and then slamming Iggy’s head into the wall like he had last week.  She would be glad that Kenyatta, Mandy’s boyfriend, was gone for the day, and there would be no screaming matches that shook the wall and mysterious bruises on her sister in law’s arms later.

Small mercies they may be, but in this life, she’d learned not to hold out for more.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Svetlana came home from an early shift at the Spa to an unexpected gift: a quiet, empty house.  Where everyone was, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care.  An opportunity like this was a rare thing indeed, and she was going to waste no time taking advantage of it.

Svetlana had made a few half-hearted attempts to clean up the house, her first few weeks there, but every time she touched something Terry or Mickey or someone was screaming at her to ‘leave their shit alone’ and she quickly gave up.  A part of her had wept at the futility, imagining her baby shoved in a bassinet amidst all this carnage.  This wasn’t her home.  It wasn’t anyone’s home, really.  Just a small kingdom ruled by a vicious tyrant.

Maybe someday, she and Mickey would have a home of their own.  He couldn’t want to live with his father forever.  Maybe when they didn’t have Terry lurking in the shadows, both of them could breathe easier.  They could be themselves.  Maybe he would be happier.  

It had been a bit of a shock to realize that she actually had a plan.

But that was far away, in a distant, too hopeful future that she could not afford to fantasize about right now.  Today, she had to at least clear out some place to put the baby’s furniture...if her shithead husband ever coughed up the money to buy any.  

Svetlana took one more look around, trying to decide where to begin.  She ignored the filthy kitchen; she could do dirty dishes anytime.  What she really wanted a crack at was the towering piles of junk every where.  

Arming herself with a big black trashbag, she wasted no time in getting to work.  Stacks of papers with inch thick dusty, piles of old remotes with no batteries, moldy food containers, empty beer cans; anything in her way that she could not discern the purpose for in the first thirty second of eyeballing went into the bag.  

Fifteen minutes in and Svetlana began to realize what a fruitless endeavor this was; her bag was bulging full and it seemed like she’d barely made a difference - she hadn’t even made it out of the living room.  She was starting to feel like an ant trying to clear a mountain of spilled salt one grain at a time.

Still, stubbornness had her persevering; moving over to a surface in the corner so covered with junk she hadn’t realized it was a desk until she’d been there for weeks.  Ruthlessly, she began to shove piles right off the desk into the bag without even trying to sort through them first.

One pile, filled with old school folders and notebooks and a binder with _Mandy_ scrawled in the midst of the graffiti covering it, missed the bag and hit the floor, papers flying.  Svetlana bent to pick it up and stopped when she saw the photos scattered underneath the school papers.

They had to belong to Mandy as well; she was in most of them,  Svetlana smiled slightly as she flipped through the pile, though she frowned at the picture of Mandy with a vaguely familiar sandy-haired boy, trying to remember where she’d seen him.  She gave up after a few seconds of thought, moving on to the next pictures.

Another unfamiliar face gave her pause; several shots of Mandy with the same small, pig-tailed girl.  She turned one of the pictures over out of curiosity but there was nothing written on the back.  Shrugging, she put it back.

The last picture was an unpleasant shock.  Orange Boy, smirking back at her, flipping off the camera as if he knew it would be her looking at back at him.  Svetlana sucked in a angry breath, crumpling up the picture at the same time. This world kept getting smaller and smaller until it felt like it would suffocate her.

The doorknob rattled then, while she still had the picture balled up in in her hand.  Guiltily, she tried to toss the picture in the overflowing trash but it avoided its fate once more, hitting the floor and rolling to lie just underneath the desk.

“Hey,”  It was Mandy walking in the door, Mickey right behind her.  “You cleaning?”  Mandy looked both impressed and amused as she looked at the trash bag Svetlana was still clutching.  “Good luck with that.”

“Thought I told you to knock it off with that shit,”  Mickey barked at her, not pausing on his way to the kitchen, opening the fridge to pull out a beer.

Svetlana ignored him, turning to Mandy.  She held out the stack of pictures.  “These are yours?”

“Oh yeah!”  Mandy reached for them.  “Wondered where those went; used to have them up in my locker.”

Svetlana paused one moment before handing the stack to Mandy.  “Who is this?’  she tapped the small girl’s image with a crimson fingernail.

Mandy’s smile instantly faded.  “Oh…”  she lowered her voice, though it was only the three of them in the house.  “That’s our little sister, Molly.”

“You have little sister?”  Svetlana was surprised, first of all that no one had mentioned her, and second, that Terry, so insistent that he alone have sole command of his offspring, would allow one to be raised outside of his household..  “She is Terry’s too?”

“Yeah,”  Mandy bit her lip.  “And unless you really want to see him lose it, don’t mention her around him.”  

Without further explanation, Mandy took the stack of photos and disappeared into her bedroom.  Svetlana looked up to see Mickey framed in the doorway, watching her.  If she’d hoped that he’d pick up the thread of the conversation, it was in vain, as usual.  He merely popped the top off his beer and stared blankly ahead.

Sighing heavily for his benefit this time, Svetlana picked up the overflowing bag and half dragged, half carried it outside to throw it into the neighbor’s trash can.  It wasn’t until she reached the curb that she remembered Orange Boy’s picture, still laying on the floor.

But when she got back inside, both the picture and Mickey were no where to be seen.

* * *

Svetlana spent much of that evening thinking about one of her least favorite topics... Mickey and his Orange Boy.  

She wanted to be furious at Mickey, but truly, she couldn’t blame anyone but herself.  It was her own stupid idea to clean up.  She should have known better.  It wasn’t debris that piled up and lurked in corners around the Milkovich household; it was secrets.

And now the boy that she thought was long gone had returned, if just a shadow trailing them both.  She had no idea what to do about it.  How could one fight a memory?

Not that she really understood why the boy had so mercifully disappeared in the first place.  When she and Mickey had had that conversation about him after their honeymoon, she’d had the clear impression that Mickey and Carrot Top were going to pick up right where they had left off.  But instead, it appeared that the boy had dropped out of the universe.  Not that Mandy or Mickey ever talked to her directly about him;  but she’d heard enough of their snippets of conversation to get the impression that the kid had packed his bags, cut his losses, and split for greener pastures.  

It had been nothing but a relief to her.  It already felt like Mickey had one foot out the door most of the time.  Having a third party making that option even more tempting would have been nothing short of disastrous. The past few months, she and Mickey had gradually settled in an uneasy routine together, and she didn’t need anything to disrupt that now.

The problem was, Mickey’s mood seemed to darken as the days did.  Lately, he had grown increasingly sullen, quick to lose his temper, even quicker to jump up and leave without warning and not return for hours.  Even Terry was starting to find the tension unbearable.

“Mickey’s not here again?”  he barked at her the following night over the chili Mandy had made everyone for dinner.  “Where the fuck is he?”

She saw the nervous glance Mandy gave her before quickly looking away and realized that Terry’s tone heralded a storm brewing.

“I...don’t know,” she admitted after a few minutes.

“You’d better fucking start paying attention,”  Terry’s eyes were locked on her.  “Man’s not being taken care of home, he’ll find it somewhere else.”

She didn’t answer that, just turned back to her plate, keeping her eyes carefully lowered.  She could feel the weight of Terry’s gaze on her, but she did not look up again.

That feeling of impending doom stayed with her all evening.  Svetlana was relieved, at least at first, when Mickey finally slumped through the door, close to midnight, reeking of alcohol, and made his way straight to the bedroom.  She followed quickly, trying to ignore Terry’s lingering stare after them.

Mickey was yanking his shirt over his head when Svetlana came in the room.  He glanced up at her, then turned away, taking off his jeans and throwing them in the corner.  

She closed her eyes for a long moment and tried to conjure him back, the version of Mickey that she’d spent her honeymoon with, the one she could actually talk to, tell him that they were in trouble, come up with something together.

Mickey collapsed on top of the covers in his t-shirt and boxers.  He had not said one word to her.  At least he’d abandoned the sleeping bag a few months back.

Svetlana followed him to the bed, climbing on her side and then bouncing up and down slightly so the bedsprings squeaked rhythmically.  She let out a few gasping breaths and a moan for good measure.

“What the fuck are you doing?”  Mickey demanded.

“Shhhh…”  she hushed him impatiently.  “I am trying to make it sound like we are fucking.”

“Jesus Christ,”  Mickey rubbed his eyes.  “You got too much goddamn time on your hands.”

She turned towards him angrily.  “Your father is asking why you are never here.  He knows you aren’t happy.”

Mickey dropped his hands.  “Believe me, he doesn’t give a shit.”

“He does,”  she corrected.  “Maybe not in that way.  But he thinks that I…”  she trailed off.

Mickey’s eyes were already closed, not even bothering to follow her train of thought.  She sighed impatiently.  “What do you want, Mickey?”

Mickey opened one eye and stared at her.

“I told you I would be good wife to you.  So you tell me what I can do.  What do you want?”

“I want you to shut the fuck up so I can go to sleep, that’s what I want,”  Mickey started to roll over and she put her hand on his arm to stop him.  He tried to shake her off but she tightened her grip.

“I can...take care of you, if you let me.  I can do whatever you want.  You can pretend. Just close your eyes.  In the dark, my mouth feels just like anyone else’s,”  she started to lean over him and Mickey shoved her away so hard she almost fell backwards off the bed.

“Get the fuck away from me!” he jumped up, grabbing his discarded jeans, yanking them on furiously.

“Wait - “ she tried, but it was too late.  Mickey was already banging through the bedroom door.  Svetlana tried to follow, but he was gone in seconds, the front door slamming behind him.  

She turned to see Terry framed in his own doorway, staring at her coldly, before he disappeared from view, slamming his own door closed.

* * *

Mickey did not come back that night.  Svetlana spent most of it tossing restlessly in their empty bed, the lamp next to the bed kept on.  The small amount of sleep she was able to get was restless and filled with nightmares.

It was a struggle to drag herself out of bed the next morning, but she forced herself to dress and put on makeup like it was any other day.  She dragged her feet through every step of her morning routine, waiting.  He still did not come.

One by one, everyone in the house left, Terry taking his older sons to pick up a shipment, Mandy and Kenyatta for work.  Svetlana was long overdue at Sasha’s herself but she couldn’t go before she saw Mickey.  

It was an interminably long wait, biting off her fingernails, pacing the small living room, before she heard light footsteps coming up the porch.

Svetlana couldn’t help her gasp of relief when she saw it truly was Mickey coming through the front door.  It was lost in the ‘Fuck!’ that slipped out of his own mouth when he saw her standing there.  Clearly, he’d timed his arrival home hoping she’d be gone.

“Where have you been?”  she demanded, the relief of seeing him back quickly tempered by the built up anxiety she’d been experiencing all morning.  

“None of your fucking - “  Mickey didn’t even finish the sentence.  He turned back towards the front door.

Svetlana jumped in front of him, blocking his way.  “Mickey, wait!”  

He stepped back, his expression closed and wary.  

“I am sorry,”  she blurted out before he could say anything else.  “About last night.  I was just trying to -”  she broke off.  “Sorry,” she repeated.  “I will not try again - unless you want me to.”

Mickey finally looked at her.  “Just so we’re clear, I won’t ever fucking want you to.”

“OK,” she nodded hurriedly. “I understand,” she wanted to say more, but the right words would not come.

Perhaps Mickey understood what she was trying to say anyway.   There was just the tiniest fraction of softening in his face, perhaps a faint relief.

“I have to go,” she said after a moment.  “I am late already.”

“Hold up a minute,”  Mickey had just started to unzip his jacket, but he zipped it back up now.  “I’m coming with you.  I want to talk to this Sasha asshole about your cut.”

Svetlana took a deep breath,  surprise mixing with dread at his words.  Between Terry to Sasha...it almost seemed like Mickey was trying to get her killed by any means necessary.

On the other hand, she was somewhat disarmed by the fact that he seemed so angry over her alleged mistreatment.  She knew it was probably more about the fact that her income was the only steady money coming into the house, but still, having him be interested in anything that even remotely concerned her was quite the novelty.  Maybe that’s why she was already going along with this absurdity, even as she weakly tried to talk him out of it.

“You do not want to mess with Sasha,”  she tried to warn him as she pulled on her gloves.  

“Oh yeah, he scary?”  Mickey smirked suddenly.  She hadn’t seen him this amped about anything since scamming the tourists in Baraboo.

“You have _no_ idea.”  

* * *

Well, that had been a complete and utter disaster.

Svetlana sorted through the afternoon’s events in her mind, though it was almost impossible to hear herself think through the high pitched babble coming at her from all sides.  She’d been relieved at first that Sasha hadn’t been there when Mickey had coming storming through the door of the Garden Spring Spas.  Instead, he blustered at Ivan, who was a rank coward for all of his posturing.  Truly, it was a shame Sasha hadn’t been there after all; she would have shut Mickey down before it had gone too far.  

Not that Svetlana could excuse herself.  Something about the way that Mickey stormed through the place, banging on the booths and then the massage rooms, making big promises and ‘rescuing’ them all, had sucked her in utterly, and she’d found herself not only allowing it, but participating in it.  It was just that at least for those brief minutes, it had truly felt like he cared.

Of course, it had all turned to shit.  Sasha had wasted no time in calling their bluff.  Svetlana supposed she should at least be grateful that Sasha hadn’t decided to have Mickey (and her) shot instead...throwing all the girls out was practically merciful on her part.

Except that now, in a single fell-handed swoop, she and her idiot husband had rendered all of her friends and co-workers both jobless and homeless.  

At least Mickey had allowed her to bring the girls back to the house with them, instead of leaving them out in the literal cold.  But it was extremely difficult, with ten girls screaming at her at once, to feel grateful.

“You take jobs away!”  she ranted at him, having to nearly scream over the din.  

It was clear Mickey was deeply regretting letting any of them in the door; probably her too, but she was too angry to care.  

“They say you are stupid fucking idiot!”  If she had to hear multiple diatribes in both languages, she was at least going to translate for the dumb motherfucker who’d gotten them into this mess.

“What did you say back?”  Mickey stormed at her and she nearly choked at his outraged demeanor.  Was she supposed to defend him now?  “That you also have small dick!”  she snapped.

He stormed off into the kitchen at that, leaving her still fuming but at least a tiny bit satisfied with that fired shot.  Svetlana hoped the rest of her message had sunk in too.  She was done letting Mickey push her around.   No matter how he felt about her, she was still a person, and so were all those women that he'd so glibly 'freed' from having a roof over their heads and a steady income.  There was no way she was going to let him walk away from this responsibility now.

Svetlana’s mood was not improved any by Mickey’s attempt at an abrupt departure a few minutes later.

“Where are you going?” she demanded when she saw him pulling on his coat.  “You cannot leave me alone to fix your mess!”

Mickey glowered at her as he yanked open the door.  “I can’t think with all of your mouths flapping at once.  I need some air.”  

He started to turn away again.

“Mikhail!”

He froze in his tracks, then turned back to her slowly.  “Don’t. Fucking. Call. Me. That.”

“Why?  It is your name,”  Svetlana put her hands on her hips and returned his glare.

“Name’s Mickey.  Says so right on my fucking birth certificate,”  Mickey pulled his gloves out of his jacket pocket and began pulling them on.

“But your mother named you Mikhail,” Svetlana persisted.  “You are only Mickey because your father thought it was too Russian.”

“Who the fuck told you that?”  Mickey demanded.

“No one had to tell me!”  she snapped at him.  “Is common sense.  No Russian woman names her son Mickey.  Isn’t even real name; it is giant mouse at theme park.”

“What the fuck ever,”  Mickey pushed past her, heading towards the door.

“You have no pride in your heritage!”  she shot after him.

Mickey threw one last glance over his shoulder.  “How’s this then? Poshol ti nahoo!”  

And with that, he was gone, leaving Svetlana mildly impressed despite herself.

“Husband knows a little more than you expected, yes?”  The husky voice right in her ear made her jump, turning around to see Nika standing next to her.  “I thought he was Ukrainian.”

“Russian mother.  Ukrainian father,”  Svetlana explained briefly.

“Ah, the famous Terry Milkovich,”  Nika smirked, looking towards the kitchen where Terry sat.

They were disrupted by a distinct rise in volume from the cluster of women in the living room in response to Raisa, who had abandoned angry ranting in favor of dissolving into hysterical tears.

Dolly was patting the girl’s shoulder, glancing up to give Svetlana a helpless look.  On the other side of Raisa, Arian merely glowered at them.

“I will go make something to eat,”  Svetlana mumbled, turning towards the kitchen to escape.

“I will help,”  Nika said immediately, trailing Svetlana’s steps.

Svetlana heaved a sigh.  She hadn’t really wanted company - the last thing she needed was someone else to unload on her.

She was opening cupboards, considering whether they had enough soup to feed everyone, when she felt Nika’s hands on her shoulders.

“So tense, Sveta,” Nika murmured in her ear.  “Relax.”

It was the exact same line they used with their customers, and Svetlana wanted to shove Nika’s hands off of her in response.  But the second Nika’s fingers began to move, working at her tense muscles, all the willpower fled right out of her.  Her head fell heavily forward and Nika began to rub the back of her neck in response.

“Maybe this isn’t so bad, huh?”  Nika’s mouth was nearly touching her ear now.  “I’ve  wanted an excuse to be your roommate for a long time.”

Svetlana’s closed eyes popped open and she pulled away from Nika abruptly.  “I do not have time for this.”

“Why?”  Nika followed her as she moved to the other side of the kitchen, opening another cupboard to bring down bowls.  “Because of him?  That pissant you married?  He treats you like shit, Sveta.  You do not love him and he definitely does not love you.  Why do you stay, huh?  For the baby?”

Svetlana looked at her.  “Good enough reason as any.”

“I hate to see you live like this,”  Nika looked around the kitchen disdainfully and back at her.

“You are living like this too, now,”  Losing patience, Svetlana dropped the stack of bowls on the counter with a loud clatter.  “So what do you think I should do, huh?  Run away with you?  Because you have so much more to offer me and my child?  Can I marry you and become citizen?  Can you help support us?  Buy house and we will all be happy family?”

Nika was silent at that, biting her lip.

“That’s what I thought,”  Svetlana turned away to get a pot big enough for the soup.  “It is all a game to you, yes?  The more I say no, the harder you try.  And the day I say yes, you realize that I come with lifetime of responsibility, and you disappear as quick as you showed up,”  she laughed bitterly at Nika’s stricken expression.  “I am not truly a prize you want to win, am I?”

“Sveta, wait,”  Nika caught Svetlana’s arm when the other woman tried to move past her.

Svetlana stopped, still holding the pot.

Nika was directly in front of her.  Carefully, she touched Svetlana’s face, tracing it with her fingertips.  “I would give anything to be able to do that for you.  I want to take care of you, and your baby.  I want to take you away from here.  I know I cannot do that right now.  But if you give me a chance…”

Svetlana had been still for a moment, feeling the way that her skin tingled when Nika touched her so carefully, but now she summoned up all her strength of will and pushed her away.  “You do not even know me, Nika.”

“I know you better than you think,”  Nika murmured, but Svetlana was done listening.  She shoved the pot into Nika’s arms, turning to leave the kitchen without another word.  

* * *

 Svetlana wouldn’t have been surprised, if after everything, Mickey had just hit the nearest freeway and kept going.  At the very least, she had not expected to see him again that night, so it was a surprise when he came through the front door a few hours later.  She’d been trying to get the girls relatively settled in for the night, grabbing floor space wherever she could for makeshift beds, and her arms were full of sheets as she stood in the living room, trying to figure out how best to fit everyone in.

Mickey’s eyes fixed on her immediately. “Hey, you.  Want to talk to you,” he called to her.

Before Svetlana could answer, Nika jumped up from the couch.  “She has a fucking name, asshole.”

Mickey spared Nika the briefest of derisive glances before he gestured to Svetlana.  “Call off your guard dog and come with me,”  he gestured at her impatiently.

Svetlana tossed the sheets on the couch and followed him out the door.

“Where are we going?”  she asked him.  

“Just out here, so I don’t have to listen to those bitches jabber,”  Mickey turned to her.  The night air was brisk, snow dappling the ground, and she shivered a bit, waiting for him to speak.

“Listen,”  Mickey scratched his head.  “I got an idea..."

***

Svetlana supposed, as ideas went, what Mickey had come up with wasn’t bad.  What she hadn’t anticipated was the amount of work that it was going to take, and the fact that she was an unwitting and undervalued partner in this newfound venture.  The next morning, Mickey had dragged her to The Alibi to check out the apartment above it that they would be using to start what he was so eloquently calling The Rub & Tug.  And despite the fact that he never acted like anything she had to say could possibly be worthwhile, he still managed to pester her non-stop about her opinions and how they should set things up and what they would need.

It would have been flattering if he didn’t take every single one of her suggestions as something to argue with.  “Why do we need to stock condoms?  Tell the girls to buy their own damn condoms!  They can supply their own lube and towels while they’re fucking at it!”

When Mickey crowned that indignity by informing Kevin, the giant barkeep, that he only planned to pay the girls $17 per customer.  After all his grandstanding and promises, it was too much.  Svetlana ended up storming downstairs to the empty bar and helping herself to a couple of hefty shots in order to calm down.

It hit her when she was finishing off the second one: Mickey had really had said seventeen dollars.  Not twelve.  Mickey had known how much she was making from Sasha’s, to the exact dollar.  And if he knew that, he had to know that she’d been shorting what she’d been giving him every day.  And he’d never said anything.  Never once had even hinted at it.

Svetlana sat at the bar for a long time, trying to puzzle it out.  When Mickey and Kev came stomping down the stairs, Mickey barking at her that it was time to go, she was no closer to figuring it out.  

* * *

When Svetlana came home that night, she found Arian and Raisa in the kitchen, half-heartedly moving stacks of dirty dishes around to make room on the counter for the sandwiches they were preparing to make. They greeted her with diminished enthusiasm

“Where is Dolly?”  Svetlana asked.  Arian pointed towards the back door silently.

Confused, Svetlana walked towards it, not understanding until she saw that it was open a crack.  It was too dark at first for her to make out anything other than the lighted tip of a cigarette but she recognized Dolly’s voice coming out of the shadows.  When her eyes adjusted, she could make out Dolly’s outline on the back steps, sitting next to someone Svetlana did not recognize.  She craned her neck, listening silently to their conversation.

“Hon, the last person you need to be visiting for comfort sex is your ex girlfriend, especially when yours truly is in the Yellow Pages.  Why didn't you just call me?”  Dolly was asking.

“Would have probably been a better idea,” a rueful voice responded.  “Gets a little pricey though.  You give student discounts?”

Dolly chuckled.  “As a general rule, no.  But for you, I might indulge in a little barter and trade.”

Svetlana pushed the door fully open to reveal Dolly and her companion sitting on the back porch, sharing a cigarette.

“Hey,”  the boy said, not in the least bit thrown by her sudden appearance.  He turned to look up at her.  “You’re Svetlana, right?  Mickey’s wife?”

She nodded.

“My condolences,” the boy’s mouth quirked as he took back the cigarette from Dolly.

Svetlana stared hard at him, recognizing him now.  He’d visited the house just yesterday to see Mandy, a visit that had ended disastrously as indicated by his hasty exit and Mandy’s slammed door.   But that wasn’t what was making her jaw grind together - she remembered exactly who he was now.  The sandy-haired boy that Dolly had brought to their apartment months back.  Brother of the redhaired demon she could never seem to shake for long.

“What is he doing here?”  she snapped at Dolly.

“He came to see Mandy,”  Dolly chirped, snagging the cigarette back from him.

“No, I came to see _you_ ,”  Her companion told Dolly, leaning back on his arms.  “This time around, anyway.”

“Bad idea,”  Svetlana interjected.  “Mandy will kill you if she finds you here again.”

“She won’t,”  the boy shrugged.  Svetlana couldn’t remember what his name was, beyond the fact that it was something stupid. “I waited around until I saw her leave for work.”

“You went through all that just to spend a little time with me?”  Svetlana rolled her eyes as Dolly flirted like a schoolgirl.  “Aw, you’re a sweetie.  I’m gonna give you a chance to be even more of a gentleman and walk me home.”  Dolly slapped his leg and stood up.

“Home?”  Svetlana was startled.  “What do you mean?”  

Dolly turned to her, her smile sliding off.  “Lannie, come inside a sec with me,” she turned back towards her friend.  “I’ll be right out.  Don’t leave without me.”

The boy tossed her an obedient salute in return.

Svetlana followed Dolly back into the house and through the living room, where Dolly’s bags sat in an enormous pile with everyone else’s.  Dolly leaned over to wrest hers free.

“I’m sorry, Lannie, but I can’t do this.  I’m going back to Sasha.  I just…I can’t count on your husband.  I don’t think he’s got the dimmest idea of what he’s doing. Plus, Terry gives me the willies, and that Kenyatta guy keeps trying to get me to give him free blowjobs.”

Svetlana swallowed hard.  “What makes you think Sasha will take you back?”

Dolly’s smile returned in an instant.  “Honey, where’s she gonna find another one of _me_?”

“True,”  Svetlana conceded.  She took the hand Dolly was holding out to her, squeezing it.  “I understand.  I will miss you though.”

“What for?”  Dolly demanded as she straightened up.  “I’m your best friend - believe me, I’ll be around.  You can’t shake me that easy.”

“Thank you,”  Svetlana murmured.  When Dolly dropped her hand, Svetlana nodded towards the back door.  “What is up with you and this empty pocket boy?  Why do you keep letting him come around?”

Dolly giggled.  “Honestly?  I kinda like him.  What can I say - that lost soul bit just does it for me.  Plus, he’s not exactly untalented,” she grinned wickedly.

“What about Damian?”  Svetlana asked her, helping Dolly stuff a few items of clothing that had fallen out back in her bag.

“What about him?  This doesn’t change anything for us.  Damian’s my guy.  This girl just likes a little variety on her menu, you feel me?”

Svetlana really didn’t.  A husband, even one who hated her guts, plus a would be girlfriend lurking in the shadows was exhausting enough to deal with.  She nodded anyway before she walked Dolly back outside, to where her escort was waiting, waving as Dolly bounced down the steps to join him.

“Hey, you,”  Svetlana called down to him before she could stop herself.  They turned back, looking puzzled.  Svetlana kept her eyes on the boy.  “When you see your brother again, you tell him to stay away.”

He stopped, looking up at her for a long moment.  “Yeah, could be a while before a I get the chance,” his face clouded over.  “If he’s been gone for this long though and you’re still worried, don’t you think maybe that bird has flown?.”

Svetlana’s fingers tightened around the railing as she looked back at him.  Perhaps she didn’t know what birds had to do with anything.  Yet she got his meaning loud and clear.

She remained silent, gritting her teeth, as Dolly and her boy turned and walked away.  “Hey,”  Svetlana heard him say as they headed down the street, “Trade you some primo weed for a bj?”

Dolly laughed, tossing her hair.  “Return the favor and you got yourself a deal!”

* * *

As it turned out, Dolly’s early exit from the house was just the first. The rest of the new Rub & Tug employees were thrown unceremoniously out a couple of days later.  Terry had very quickly grown tired of stumbling over them in every corner of the house, not to mention that Mandy was still on the warpath after catching her boyfriend enjoying a free sample.

Svetlana had not given much thought to where Nika or any of the others had scattered to.  She couldn’t, because the guilt would have been crushing.  There wouldn’t be a lot of options, she knew.  She had managed to talk Mickey into putting a couple of cots aside in the Rub & Tug so anyone who needed it could at least get a few hours sleep in between shifts,  and have a quick place to take a shower and eat.  It was the least they could do.

It wasn’t the fate of her workers that had Svetlana so pre-occupied this day, as she walked down the street towards her marital abode.  She’d spent the morning at the clinic.  Normally she wouldn’t have gone alone.  The idea of Mickey joining her was laughable, of course, but usually Dolly or Bette, would have come with her.  And on this day, they definitely would have wanted to be there.  It was the day she was scheduled to find out, via ultrasound, the sex of her unborn child.

The enormity of that was what had kept Svetlana from telling anyone.  Today, that unseen entity that resided inside her would transition from idea to an actual person.  She hadn’t been sure how she was going to deal with that, and she wanted some time to herself to figure it out.

Even now, Svetlana wasn’t sure how she was feeling.  She slowed her steps, looking at the folder she held in her hands.  After a second’s hesitation, she flipped it open, reading again the words _It’s a Boy!_ scrawled at the top of the first picture, exaggerated with a smiley face.

The photographs were larger and clearer than she had expected.  Without the constant movement of the images on the ultrasound monitor, it was much easier to make out the details.  She could see tiny fingers, indescribably small toes...she could see the shape of his face, the fact that his eyes were open, seeming to stare right at her expectantly.

It felt like her heart actually clenched at that, twinging painfully inside her chest.  She traced the outline of his face with her finger slowly.  Soon, she’d be able to touch him for real.

For the first time, the idea did not seem wholly terrifying.

That small realization gave her an unexpected bolt of adrenaline.  Suddenly, she deeply regretted having decided to do this alone.  She needed someone to be with her in this moment, to look at her baby’s face the same way she was, to feel the universe getting ready to shift.

Svetlana closed the folder and hurried down the sidewalk, nearly running now.  The only concern the biting wind gave her was the way it snatched at the folder holding the ultrasound photos, as if trying to grab them out of her hands.  She clutched them tighter as she reached the house, nearly running up the steps and bursting through the door.

She was glad that Mickey was the first person she saw; he paused in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen as she entered, eating out of a cup o’noodles.

“It's a boy!” Svetlana couldn’t even wait until she got her jacket off.  She started to hold out the folder to him so he could look for himself.  

Mickey’s face went dead.  His eyes were still on her, but there was no expression at all in them.  He ignored her offering,  turned, threw his half eaten cup into the sink, and walked away.

The click of their - no, it was never really hers too, just his - door behind him drained all of the excitement out of her instantly.

“A boy!”  Terry was coming out of the kitchen now, a broad grin splitting his face.  “Well goddamn, that's great news!”  he turned to the living room and she belatedly noticed the full quarters...Mandy and Iggy were sitting together, and their other brothers were there too.  Even Terry’s brother, Donnie or Ronnie or something like that.   “Did you hear that?” Terry boomed at them.  “It’s a boy!”

There was a general cheer at that as Terry pulled Svetlana forward, slinging his arm over her shoulders.  He was beaming, presenting her as if she’d just won a prize.  

“I have pictures - “ she began, looking down at the folder.  Terry had it open before she could even finish the sentence, crowing in delight as if he could actually discern the black and white blurs.

“Look at that!   That’s a Milkovich for sure!  Look at that nose!”  he was happily showing them around, ignoring his children’s clearly feigned polite interest in sharp contrast to his brother’s seeming genuine delight.  The two men put their heads together and began to loudly discuss each (probably imaginary) characteristic that they could see.

Despite herself, Svetlana couldn’t help but smile.  At least someone was happy.

“Drinks!  We gotta celebrate!”  Terry clapped his hands together.  He turned back towards Svetlana.  “Where the fuck is the proud papa?”  he looked around.  “MICKEY! GET YOUR FUCKING ASS IN HERE!”

A few seconds later the bedroom door clicked open.  Mickey came back into the living room.  His face was a shade paler than it had been before, his eyes as dead as ever.

Terry’s eyes narrowed. “What the fuck is wrong with you?  Your wife just told you she's having your son, you can't even fucking smile?”

Mickey flinched reflexively back and then his lips parted in a sickly looking grin, too reminiscent of their wedding day.

Terry continued to stare hard at Mickey for a moment.  Svetlana didn’t realize she was holding her breath until he looked away, distracted by the beer Ronnie had uncapped and handed to him.  

Mickey’s shoulders slumped.  For a second, their eyes met and then he looked away as if he couldn’t stand to see her there.  Once again, Svetlana felt that small joy that today had brought her dissolve into something foul.  She felt filthy all over again, contaminated...lethal.  Her son a ticking bomb hidden in a gaily wrapped present.  

But it was far too late to turn back now.

* * *

By that evening, Svetlana had exhausted herself, going over it all in her mind on a loop until she wanted to scream.  There was no perfect answers, no easy solution. She was desperately tired of trying to think of one.  All she wanted to do was find some corner of the universe to curl up into where none of this existed, where she could find five minutes of peace away from the constant worry about the future.

But there was no such sanctuary to be found.  Especially not in the Milkovich household, where she was truly on her own.  And just looking around the crowded quarters made her predicament ever more evident.  It was barely six weeks until her due date and there was not one sign in the house that a baby was expected.  No crib, no clothing, no changing table or diaper bag, no diapers even.  

“When are we going shopping for baby?”  she demanded of Mickey, cornering him after dinner.  “I will have him soon.  We have nothing.  I give you all my money.”

“I don’t fucking know!  Soon, OK?”  Mickey shook her off impatiently.

“If you don’t want to shop for baby, give me money and I will do it,”  Svetlana bit out, feeling her threadbare hold on her temper begin to fray rapidly.

“If I had it, believe me, I’d pay for you to shut the fuck up right now,”  Mickey glared at her as he uncapped another beer.

“But I gave you - “  Svetlana started again.

“Does this look like the fucking Savings and Loan?”   Mickey threw an impatient look around the living room.  “Even this shithole costs money to keep going.   Try jerking two dicks at a time, _then_ maybe we can save up.” With that, he stomped out of the room, just in time to avoid the glass she’d flung at his head.

So much for being a good wife..

***

The atmosphere was still extremely tense the next morning.  Unfortunately, she and Mickey didn’t have the opportunity to give each other space - it was the first day that the Rub & Tug was fully operational. They were both needed at the Alibi from the time it opened to make sure everything went according to plan.

Which it wasn’t, unless the plan was for them all to stand around, looking at the near empty bar and their complete lack of customers.  Their women drifted restlessly from upstairs through the bar, looking at the door from time to time and shooting Svetlana and Mickey increasingly frustrated looks.

Mickey was reacting to this latest setback as well as could be expected - he sat at the bar, drinking shot after shot, looking increasingly sour faced.

Svetlana was finally rescued from the 3D manifestation of their enormous failure by the beeping sound coming from her phone.  Her eyebrows nearly shot off her forehead when she read the text on the screen.

Silently, she stood up from her seat next to Mickey and began to pull on her coat.

“Where the fuck you think you're going?”  Mickey snapped at her.

“Break,” she snapped right back.

“What, you think this is a union gig?  Get the fuck back here!”  Mickey’s voice rose as Svetlana continued walking without a glance in his direction.

She walked two blocks, past a herd of city workers who catcalled excitedly and turned into an alley, looking around cautiously before stepping deeper into the shadows.

A quiet cough, and she saw Sasha leaning against the wall, lighting a cigarette.

“I had to do it,” Sasha said by way of greeting.  “Your tiny husband gave me no choice.”

“I know,”  Svetlana held out her hand and Sasha passed her the cigarette.

“I can't be seen as weak.  Not in this business.  Being a woman makes it hard enough,”  Sasha took the cigarette back and flicked off the ash.

“I understand,”  Svetlana agreed again.

“And now, thanks to you two, I am stuck with a chattering pack of radioactive pussy,” Sasha sighed loudly now.

Svetlana chuckled drily.  “You are not enjoying new stock?”

Sasha groaned.  “Pack of whiny morons and not one of them speaks English.  Makes trying to negotiate prices with customers a nightmare.  At least I have Dolly back.  I need at least one person with a brain,” Sasha exhaled a cloud of smoke.  “I'm telling everyone I threatened to break Snack-Sized kneecaps unless he gave her up.  He knows what's good for him, he doesn't say any different, yeah?”

“Of course,”  Svetlana was quick to agree.

Sasha straightened up, looking Svetlana over, eyes narrowed.  “So you two think you are going into business on your own?  Be my competition, maybe?”

 _Shit_.  Svetlana heard the implied threat in Sasha’s voice now, even as the other woman kept smiling.  

“We have no choice either,” she said finally, facing Sasha.  “What else can we do?  We will not let them starve.  If you don’t like it, take them back.”

Sasha laughed.  “Far too late for that.  Fair enough, though.  You do what you think you have to.  It’s nothing to me; like vending machine next to full service restaurant.  You will make pocket change at best.”

Even equal parts relieved and insulted, Svetlana couldn’t argue with that.  She stayed silent.

“Still,”  Sasha blew out another cloud of smoke.  “Maybe we can still do business.  Behind the scenes, maybe.”

“What do you mean?”  Svetlana watched Sasha warily, looking for signs of a trap.

Sasha shrugged.  “Milkovich family has been running drugs in this neighborhood since your husband was in diapers.  Maybe I’d like a supplier I can trust.  Now I have one.”  

“Me?”  Svetlana choked on her own drag, coughing out smoke in puffs.

“Would not trust any of these Milkovich men as far as I can throw them,”  Sasha shrugged.  “You are different.  We go back.  Also, you have more to lose,” she looked significantly at Svetlana’s belly.  “I’d think twice before you say no.  That husband of yours is fucking idiot and you aren’t much better.  The two of you are in over your heads.  This could keep you from drowning.  Also, my goodwill is not a bad thing to have.”  Her words were like a vice, clamping Svetlana in between its jaws and tightening.  No matter what she said, Sasha was not truly offering her a choice.

“Do not look so concerned,”  Sasha chuckled drily.  “This is simple, small time.  I am not asking you to run heroin for me.  I want pills.  All the good stuff  our salt of the earth middle class is so hooked on.  Vicodin, Percocet, Demerol...we have a  built in market with our customers.  We sell it to them and they bring it home to their neglected wives to keep them quiet and happy.  Profit all the way down the line, including for you.  It’s a good plan, yes?”  She raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“Yes,”  Svetlana finally managed.  “I will get you want you need.”

“You do that.  Quickly,”  Sasha took the cigarette back and threw it on the ground, rubbing it out with her shoe.  “I’ll be in touch.”  With that, she swept regally away.

* * *

Her mind was still on Sasha when she and Mickey left The Alibi that night.  They both were in a grim, non-talkative mood.  Svetlana was not especially surprised when Mickey excused himself with a grunt and turned to walk in the opposite direction from where the hovel they laughingly called a home lay.  

Svetlana wasn’t paying much attention to anything as she walked the few blocks back to the house, so the couple making out against the alley wall would have completely passed unnoticed if one of the figures hadn’t flinched spasmodically as she walked by.  The jerky movement had her turning to see her brother in law Iggy, looking a bit pale and nervous as he stared back, his arms still around his companion.

“Hello,”  she said politely, more for the girl he was with than Iggy, who was not a person that one worried about having manners around.  “Who is this?”  she asked him.

Iggy swallowed hard, but he didn’t need to answer.  The girl pushed Iggy out of her way, stepping directly in Svetlana’s path.   “Who the fuck are you and why are you asking?”

Svetlana stared back.  The girl was dark haired, black, and very pretty in a ‘don’t fuck with me’ type of way.  At the moment her posture was definitely all ‘don’t fuck with me’.

Amused, Svetlana put her hands on her hips.  “I am his sister in law.  Who the fuck are you?”

“Oh!”  In an instant, the girl’s posture changed.  She stepped back and punched Iggy none too gently in the arm.  “Motherfucker, why didn’t you tell me this was family?  I was about to kick her ass!”  she turned back to Svetlana, grinning.  “I’m Tasha.  Iggy’s girlfriend.”

Svetlana reached out when Tasha held out a hand, expecting a shake, but instead Tasha slapped her palm so hard it stung.  Svetlana winced.  “I did not know you had girlfriend,”  she told Iggy.

Iggy shot her a somewhat pleading look at that.  At the same time, Tasha’s expression soured noticeably.  “Yeah, Iggy, why is that?  Have you told one goddamn person in your family about us yet?”

“Fuck, Tasha, not this again - “  Iggy broke off as Svetlana started to move away, not wanting to get into the middle of this lover’s quarrel.  “Hey...wait a minute!  Sah-vet...uh...Svetlana!”  He pronounced her name correctly with a considerable effort.

“What?”  Svetlana asked, tapping her foot impatiently, already done with this little bit of family drama.  

“Can you like...not tell my dad about this?”  Iggy shuffled his feet nervously.

“Why?”  Svetlana demanded, bewildered.  She looked back at Tasha, who looked just as mystified.   Unless Tasha was sporting a dick under those jeans, Svetlana couldn’t see how Iggy having a girlfriend would upset the Milkovich apple cart.  

“Because...he’s got a problem with...like, you know…”  Iggy trailed off, peeking guiltily at Tasha under his lashes.

It took her a moment to understand, then Svetlana nearly choked.  “Oh!”  Svetlana realized.  “Because she’s black?”  she couldn’t help her astonishment.  “But what about Kenyatta?”

“That’s different for Dad...Kenyatta’s a guy.  Also, I think Dad’s a little afraid of him,”  Iggy shrugged.

Confronted by far too much to be disgusted with at once, Svetlana was trying to decide which part of it to be horrified by first when Tasha exploded.

“That’s what the problem is?  Your douchebag daddy can’t deal with the thought of a little color mixing with his whiter than fuck family tree?”

Iggy shrugged apologetically.  “I know, babe, it’s fucking stupid.  He just ain’t the type that you can talk to -”

“Oh, I don’t want to talk to him!”  Tasha was turning in the direction of the house.  “I’m going to beat the fuck out of him.  Bitch can’t say shit if he’s unconscious, now can he?”  

“Tasha, wait!”  

Tasha was already halfway down the block and Iggy was forced to run after her, picking her up off her feet with his arms around her waist as she kicked and swore.  He carried her a few feet, back towards Svetlana, before she became impossible to hold onto any longer.

“What the fuck, Iggy?”  Tasha turned her rage on him now.  “You really that afraid to walk up into your house with me?  Tell your dad that I’m your girl?  I can’t believe you’re fucking ashamed to be with me!”

“I’m not ashamed!”  Iggy was yelling back.  “I’m fucking scared, OK?  You don’t know my dad!  He’ll hurt you, Tasha.  I can’t let anything happen to you!  I fucking love you, don’t you get that?”

whatever Tasha had been about to scream back disappeared immediately.  She was staring at Iggy with huge eyes.  

“I love you too,”  Tasha whispered after a moment.  

Iggy took a step towards her at that, and she held up a hand to stop him.  “But that’s not enough.  I get that you’re scared.  I’m sorry your dad is an inbred dumb fuck.  And if you say you can’t talk to him, I believe you. So what are you going to do about it?”

“What the fuck do you expect me to do, Tasha?”  Iggy’s voice was more desperate than angry.

“Figure it out, Iggy!  Grow up, get a job, move the fuck out, and leave his bullshit behind!  Or you're just gonna be your daddy's bitch for the rest of your life, don't you see that?”

Iggy was speechless at that.

Tasha sighed, shaking her head, while her eyes filled with tears.  “I really do love you.  But I’m not someone you can hide in the shadows,”  she sighed, and dropped her arms to her waist. 

 Iggy started to speak and Tasha shook her head again.  “Just...think about it.  Think hard.  Because I’m not gonna wait that long,”  With that, she turned and walked away.

“Shit,”  Iggy watched her turn the corner and disappear.  He blinked rapidly.  “Fuck. Shit.”  He slumped back against the alley wall.

Svetlana couldn’t help the pity that welled up at Iggy’s utterly defeated demeanor.

“Come on,”  she stepped next to her brother in law, and pulled him away from the wall, tucking his arm underneath hers.  “Let’s go home.”

“Yeah,”  Iggy shuffled along next to her.   “I  don’t wanna lose her,”  he mumbled after a moment as they walked.  “What the fuck am I gonna do?”

Svetlana did not have even the smallest semblance of an answer for him.

* * *

The house was surprisingly still that evening, if not exactly peaceful.  Kenyatta was working at his weekend job as a bouncer, Mickey hadn’t come home, as usual, and as far as she knew, Terry was at the Alibi drinking himself even stupider than usual.  Iggy and Mandy were both quiet, and each disappeared into their rooms early.

She knew what was making Iggy so subdued, but Mandy was a bit more of a mystery.   Altogether, between the three of them, the air itself seemed permeated with sadness and resignation.  Svetlana curled up on the couch and tried to bolster her spirits with a book she’d found among Mandy’s school things, but the story was sad too.  Eventually, she fell into a restless sleep.

It was the sound of the front door opening that awakened her, but Svetlana did not open her eyes, too tired to move, willing sleep to come back and claim her again.

The footsteps that shuffled by were surprisingly quiet, and that was what attracted her attention more than anything.  Not a single person in the Milkovich household was known either for stealth or courtesy; they came booming through the front door at all hours of the day and night with no care for who might be sleeping.  

She peeked beneath her eyelashes, expecting to see Mickey sidling past her, probably hoping to be free of his nagging wife for one night.  

It wasn’t Mickey.  It was Terry.  He was walking carefully past, wafting strong liquor fumes behind him.  He stopped, looking warily to each side, before he turned towards Mandy’s door.  Confused, watched him put his hand on the doorknob, look from side to side again, and then open it, disappearing into the darkness within.  It closed behind him with an ominous click.

Realization hit her with a horrific rush, and Svetlana sat up on the couch, staring at Mandy’s closed door.   _No, no, no_...this couldn’t be happening.  He wouldn’t do this.  Couldn’t do this.  Not to his own daughter.

And yet, he could.  Svetlana knew too well what fathers had the capacity of doing.

For several seconds she sat, frozen in mute horror and indecision, and then she was up, running, bursting through Mandy’s door before she had time to think anything through.

Her arrival was timely; Terry was standing next to Mandy’s bed, hand on his zipper.  All she could see of his daughter was a pair of eyes that peeped over the comforter she had pulled over her head, and a glimpse of her white, pale face.

Terry’s eyes locked on to her with a mix of shame and rage.  She spoke quickly, hoping to douse the flame before it became an inferno.

“Terry…”  she adopted a sweet, syrupy tone she barely recognized as her own.  “You are drunk, silly.  You are in wrong room.  I will help you to bed, no?”

It worked...she could see the relief sagging his features before he nodded.  “Yeah…” he mumbled, fumbling as if she would not notice his less than discreet re-zipping of his pants.  “Gotta take a piss,”  he muttered, shoving past her.  

She waited until she heard him stumbling towards the bathroom and turned back to the bed.  Mandy was sitting up now, the blanket still clutched to her.  Svetlana could see her shaking.

“Lock your door,” she said flatly.

Mandy’s eyes stuttered to her face, shocked, before she turned away.  “No locks,” she mumbled.  “We’re not allowed.”

Svetlana heaved a sigh.  “Get one anyway.  I cannot always be here,”  Without another word she left the room, closing Mandy’s door quietly behind her.

Terry was just leaving the bathroom and she nearly walked into him.  He blinked blearily at her.

“Come on,”  she took his arm carefully, fixing that guileless smile on her face again.  “We will get you tucked in.”

It’s not like he really needed the help - Terry drank so much and so frequently that he could probably walk a tightrope even in his most inebriated state, but the pretense was part of the game they were both playing.  He held on to her tightly as she steered him into his bedroom.  

“I will make up your bed - “ she started to say, knowing Terry, like most men, liked to be mothered, but his hard grip stopped her before she could step away from him.

“Down on your knees, suka,”  Terry grinned at her, reaching once more for his zipper, and for a sickening minute Svetlana saw the wolf again, a ghost of Volkov in his grin, and the flash of accompanying fear and anger made her nearly sway on her feet.  She almost refused, but she saw again Mandy’s eyes, staring out from the blanket she’d been trying to hide behind.

She got down on her knees.

* * *

Svetlana couldn’t sleep that night, even once Mickey had come home and to bed, filling the darkness with his reluctant yet reassuring presence.  She tried, shifting over and over to get comfortable until Mickey had raised his head and barked at her angrily to knock it off.  But every small squeak and sound had her instantly tensing until she finally realized what she was doing...she was listening for Terry, for stealthy footsteps to make their way back down the hall towards his daughter’s room.  

Finally, she gave up on the concept of sleep altogether and just lay staring upwards at the shifting shadows twisting on the ceiling.  

This wasn’t her problem.  It was stupid of her to make it her problem.  

But then again, she lived here too.  Svetlana had married into this twisted, white trash nightmare, and she was part of it now.  Her son was going to be part of this too. She was not her mother.  Willing to let anything happen underneath her roof as long as it did not inconvenience her.  Pretending so hard that she walked through life willingly blinded.

And with eyes wide open, there was only one conclusion that could be drawn. Everything that was so fucked up in this house of horrors was because of Terry.  

It was because of him that she was pregnant with a baby nobody wanted, perhaps not even her.  It was because of him that Mickey was forever scarred, forever angry, always looking over his shoulder.  Because of Terry that a little girl couldn’t even be mentioned by her siblings in his presence.  Because of Terry that Iggy  couldn't bring his girlfriend home.   It was because of Terry that Mandy was so willing, desperate even, to have a man like Kenyatta in her bed every night, just so her father wouldn't come through her door instead.

Nothing would be good for any of them with Terry around.  He sifted all happiness out of life and crushed it in his hands.  She could not go on like this.  None of them could.

***

It ended up being far simpler than she had anticipated.  The next morning, Svetlana waited until everyone had left the house, and then she’d dug through Terry’s room until she’d found some balled up paperwork with his probation officer’s name.  She asked Damian to make the actual anonymous call, since her accent probably would have been too much of a giveaway.

Terry’s probation officer was at their door that evening, far faster than Svetlana had expected.  He had a police car already waiting as backup.  They clearly knew Terry well enough to know it wasn’t going to be easy.  

Terry’s screaming, violent refusal to complete the requested drug test was enough to violate his probation immediately.  Svetlana had a hard time keeping the smirk off her face when the officers stormed inside to wrest a screaming, flailing Terry down the steps.  She didn’t bother to join Mandy outside to see them wrangle him in the police car.  It was done, that was all that mattered.  Life would be better now.

It had to be.

* * *

Compared to the chaos of the last several months, at first life in their now Terry free zone was far more relaxed.  There were problems still, particularly how to pay the bills now that he wasn’t there to bring in money from his many illegal endeavors.  They felt the pinch enough that Mandy decided to join the labor force - she got a job at the same diner Terry had once taken Svetlana to.

At least business had picked up at the Rub & Tug.  It was actually providing a steady, if small, stream of revenue into the house.  Best of all, it kept Mickey occupied.  With something to do, he spent far less time disappearing to who knew where, or brooding in corners.  Sometimes he even smiled willingly, made jokes...shades of the Mickey she’d once briefly caught a glimpse of emerging once more.

It had been another slow night at the Alibi, and she’d drifted downstairs only to be talked into a game of pool, a decision which she was quickly regretting.

“Eightball!”  Kev crowed triumphantly as the last ball dropped into the pocket with a thunk.  "I win!  You owe me five,” he held out his palm to her.

Svetlana groaned and dug into her pocket, pulling out a crumpled bill and slapping it into Kev’s palm.  “I think you cheat,” she informed him, eyes narrowed.

“Nah, you just suck,” Kev grinned, pocketing the cash.  “Wanna go again?”

“Fuck no, she doesn’t want to go again,” Svetlana looked around, startled, as Mickey got off the barstool and came towards them.  “It’s like you’re shaking down a kindergartner for lunch money.  You oughta be ashamed.”

Kev chortled unapologetically.  “Hey, I’ll take easy money any where I can get it.”

“Not from my wife, you won’t,”  Mickey turned to Svetlana.  “If you’re gonna play for cash, you oughta have some fucking clue of what you’re doing.  Come here and let me see what you’re playing with.” he gestured at the pool cue she still held.

Wordlessly, she handed it over.  Mickey eyed it carefully.  “Look at that,” he gestured to the tip.  “First of all, you gotta pick the tools of the trade a little more carefully.  See how the tip is all worn off?  That’s part of your problem right there,” he turned towards the next pool table over, eyeing it speculatively, then pulling a pool cue out of the hands of the man about to take a shot and tossing it to her.

“Hey!”  the man complained, straightening up.

“Shut the fuck up, Kermit, I’m teaching here,”  Mickey turned back towards her impatiently.  “Now look at this one.  See the difference?” he pointed at the tip, waiting for her nod.  “Good.  Now let’s work on your stance,” he waited for her to lean over to take her shot.  “No, no, no.  Like this,”  he came up behind her, putting his hands on her waist, redirecting her feet by nudging them with his own.

It was difficult for Svetlana to get into the position Mickey wanted her in, with her enormous belly getting in the way, but still she tried, more than mindful that this was the first time she could ever remember Mickey willingly touching her.

He put his hand over hers, re-positioning it, helping her line up the shot, and then stepping back.  

A second later her ball hit its mark and sank the shot neatly into the corner.

“That’s what I’m talking about it!”  Mickey grinned broadly and to her great surprise, slapped her a high five while a few onlookers applauded.  He looked back over at Kev.  “Few more lessons, and she’s gonna be ready for that rematch.  You’d better come with full pockets.  You sure as shit ain’t leaving with them.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to put your money where your mouth is right now, Milkovich,”  Kev stepped up to the pool table, his look at Mickey a clear challenge.  “You and me.  Let’s see if you’re as good as you think you are.”

Mickey and Svetlana exchanged amused looks at that.  Svetlana tossed him her cue and stepped back, letting him take her place.  

She was standing with the growing crowd of spectators, getting ready to cheer on their favorites, which she caught sight of Nika, standing a few feet away, staring at her coldly.  Svetlana threw a quick look at Mickey but he was getting ready to take his first shot.  She stepped away, towards the other woman.

“You two are so cute.  Such a good couple,”  Nika’s voice was deeply sarcastic. “Match made in heaven.”

Svetlana sighed impatiently.  “I do not owe you anything, Nika.”

Nika clenched her jaw tightly in return.  “I know that..  But do you really think it is this easy, Sveta?  He is nice to you for five minutes and all your problems are over?  Now he’ll be good husband?  Perfect father?”

“I take what I can get,”  Svetlana shook her off.  She didn’t look back as she rejoined the crowd, though she could feel Nika’s gaze piercing her all the way through.

Mickey gestured to her impatiently when he saw her standing there again.  “Where the fuck did you go?  You need to be watching this - you’ll pick up a few things.  You got a good eye for this - between the two of us we can have this place regularly cleaned out.”

“We make a good team,” she agreed.  Mickey’s eye twitched slightly at that, but he said nothing, just indicated for her to watch as he lined up his next shot.

Still, it was something.  Maybe he was starting to realize that they needed each other.  If he gave her half a chance, she could show him that she was more than just a weight around his neck - she was his partner.  It was all that she could ask for, all that she wanted.  To give their child two parents that didn’t hate each other was the best gift she could imagine.  And tonight, that dream, that had seemed so out of reach just weeks before, felt closer than ever.

* * *

She should have known it was all too good to be true.

The rapid decline began the next morning, when she’d woken up to find Mickey and Kev bickering in the bedroom, something about needing a gun.  Looking back, she should have known what Mickey was up to as soon as she saw the dress shirt he was putting on.  The only time she’d ever seen Mickey dressed up was when he was wearing his ill fitting rented tux at their wedding.

Still, she had no way to anticipate what was coming next.

It wasn’t like Svetlana hadn’t known that the world could tilt on its axis in a second.  It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before - the rug ripped out from beneath her, the abrupt fall…

Still, it snatched her breath away, to come into the bedroom still wrapped in a towel, only to find Mickey sitting on a chair in the corner, watching the figure slumped across the bed. There was such tenderness on Mickey's face that she almost didn’t recognize him.

It was all wrapped up in the look he gave her, startled at first, a flash of shame, then it melted into steel defiance, and she knew then that everything had already changed.

Carrot Boy was back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge, huge thank you to Zebrawallpaper for her boundless patience and beta'ing skills. You keep me going.
> 
> So sorry to readers for the long wait; I hope that this long chapter makes up for it a bit. 'Sasha' wasn't originally the planned title of it - this chapter was twice as long at one point, so my plans changed a little. The good news is that most of the rest chapter is already written, though it will take some significant editing. Hopefully it will not be too long of a wait.
> 
> Coming up in chapter six: Svetlana turns to Iggy for help and grows closer to Nika, a certain baby boy is ushered into a less than welcoming world, and Svetlana must face Orange Boy at last.
> 
> Thank you for reading; feedback is greatly appreciated!


	6. Geno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian’s return sparks a war between Mickey and Svetlana. But just when things couldn’t get worse between the two of them, they may end up needing each other more than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it's been so long; please enjoy this extra lengthy chapter as penance. A brief recap: in the last chapter Svetlana and Mickey tried to adjust to married life, 'freed' Sasha's girls with disastrous results, and opened the Rub & Tug. In return, Sasha 'gently suggested' that Svetlana supply her with drugs from the Milkovich family trade. On top of that, Orange Boy is back.
> 
> (this chapter covers canon events from season 4, but I did make the choice, for the most part, to not detail events that we are all familiar with, though I did make some important exceptions.)
> 
> tw: Terry (and all the things that go with him, canon violence, threats, homophobic slurs, etc).

 

_It wasn’t like Svetlana hadn’t known that the world could tilt on its axis in a second.  It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before - the rug ripped out from beneath her, the abrupt fall…_

_Still, it snatched her breath away, to come into the bedroom still wrapped in a towel, only to find Mickey sitting on a chair in the corner, watching the figure slumped across the bed. There was such tenderness on Mickey's face that she almost didn’t recognize him._

_It was all wrapped up in the look he gave her, startled at first, a flash of shame, then it melted into steel defiance, and she knew then that everything had already changed._

_Carrot Boy was back._

 

She shouldn’t leave, Svetlana knew that, even as she hurriedly dressed.  Leaving was like giving in, ceding territory to the interloper.

Fuck it; she’d consider it a tactical retreat.  

It wasn’t until she was outside, shivering in the chill of the winter night, that she considered where she was going.  It was in the middle of the night, and she had a couple of dollars on her at best. Her first instinct was to go see Dolly, but Dolly was back at Sasha’s, where Svetlana could not openly show her face.  Especially if she did not want to get waylaid about the pills she’d yet to deliver.  

There was Arian, but she wasn’t exactly sure where Arian was.  Plus there’d been a definite chill between them since the Sasha fiasco.

Just as she was deciding to go find an all night dinner that hopefully wouldn’t throw her out for nursing the same cup of coffee for hours, her phone buzzed with a text.

_Have a new number.  Keep in touch.  -Nika_

Svetlana bit her lip then hit the reply button before she could think it over too long.

***

Nika, it turned out, was renting space in the garage of an old brick house that had definitely seen better days.

The garage hadn’t actually been converted, unless you counted covering the concrete walls with faded blankets.  There was a square slab of rough carpet on the ground, the kind that could be cut in smaller pieces and used to protect car floors from snow covered boots or muddy shoes.  Perched in the middle of the carpet was Nika’s bed, just the top layer of a mattress, heaped in more faded, worn blankets.

Streetlight oozed in all around the unsealed sliding garage door, an obvious source of the freezing temperature, though Svetlana could hear from the rattling of the windows in the early winter breeze that they weren’t exactly fighting off the elements either.  It was barely warmer than it was outside, despite the presence of an overworked space heater pointed directly at the mattress.   Plus it would probably flood when the snow melted, or the rain came.  The strong smell of mildew, buried under a layer of bleach, attested to that being a regular occurrence.

“This is terrible,” she could not stop herself from saying from the doorway.  

Nika shrugged.  “Better than nothing,” she strolled ahead of Svetlana to throw herself down on the mattress, bouncing a bit before she stretched out on her back, smiling slyly upwards.  “Plenty of room for two.  Come,” she patted the space next to her.  “I keep you warm,” she punctuated that near purr with a calculated lip bite, her tongue teasing the corner of her mouth.

“Stop it,” Svetlana burst out.  “Do not treat me like I am one of your customers.  I do not want to rent you for the hour.”

Nika sat halfway up, propping herself on her elbows, smile fading into defensiveness.“Then what do you want, Sveta?”

Svetlana couldn’t quite meet those sharp, demanding eyes.  “Sleep,” she said finally.  “I want to sleep.”

Wordlessly, Nika patted the bed space next to her again.  After a few seconds Svetlana moved forward, dropping her purse off to the side.  She shrugged out of her coat and immediately regretted it when the cold swarmed her like a sea of tiny, sharply biting mouths.

“Hurry,”  Nika was watching her clear discomfort.   She climbed under the covers herself and and waited.  

Svetlana kicked off her heels and climbed in.  The bed was still cold, but at least it was a bit of a shield.  She couldn’t help but be drawn to the one source of warmth, radiating outward from Nika.  It was a battle to keep herself from moving closer, forcing herself to stay on her own side, dropping on to the unwelcoming flat pancake of a pillow with a sigh.  The heaviness of the baby inside her felt like an anchor, pinning her to the mattress.

Nika watched her silently.  After several seconds, she reached for the shadeless lamp, its bulb burning Svetlana’s eyes when she looked too closely at it.

“Don’t,”  Svetlana burst out.

Nika’s fingers paused, poised on the switch.  “Why?”

Svetlana pressed her lips together tightly.  “Never mind,” she muttered after a moment.

A click, and the room was flooded with darkness.  Despite herself, Svetlana could not restrain the involuntary shudder at being lost in the unfamiliar environment.  Thankfully, the streetlight shining through the grimy windows saved it from being completely black.  After a few seconds, she was actually able to see fairly well in the dimness.

Nika was an alabaster glow in the bed next to her.  She’d laid down on her side, facing Svetlana, one eye focused directly on her, the other, her mysteriously still one, looking just past her, as if looking into the shadows.  A sentry, in a way, fixed in its post.

She could not hide from that steady, one-eyed gaze.  Svetlana wanted to turn over, block herself from view, but she couldn’t bring herself to act out such an obvious rejection.  Nika had offered her sanctuary.  The least Svetlana could do was face her.

She let her eyes close, hiding behind her eyelids.  The room was quiet, save for the muffled sounds of traffic outside, the sound of distant shouts.

Sleep beckoned surprisingly quickly, and Svetlana was just falling into its welcome embrace, when Nika’s voice pulled her back.

“I liked the way you took care of your friend.  Katya.”

Svetlana’s eyes opened involuntarily.  Nika had switched to Russian...her voice was different now, relaxed.

Nika was smiling slightly at Svetlana’s clear surprise.  “Yes, I was around then,”  she shifted on the pillow, moving a tiny fraction closer.  “I do not blame you for not seeing me.  Whenever she was around, you looked at her like she was the whole world.”

“Don’t talk about her,”  Svetlana closed her eyes again, trying to will Nika into silence.

“Why?”  Nika’s voice was quiet, but determined.  “It will not make it hurt less, never saying her name. You think about her all the time.  I can see it in your face, when you do.  It’s the only time I ever know what you are feeling.”

Svetlana closed her eyes more tightly, as if shutting out the dim glow just beyond her eyelids would magically make her ears close as well.

But Nika was still speaking, and nothing could stop her words from sliding into home.

“You were always watching her, but I was watching you,” Nika sighed suddenly.  “You treat me like I am a joke, think I am playing a game.  But it is so wrong that I want some little fraction of you, some small bit that is left over?  That I dream about you seeing me at all?”

Svetlana did not open her eyes.  She couldn’t.  She couldn’t bear to see those eyes again, feel the weight of expectation.

“I…” she took a small breath.  “What you want from me, Nika, I do not think I have to give.”

There was a deliberate shuffling, and then Nika’s weight, her warmth, was directly next to her.  The heat from Nika’s skin washed over Svetlana, a heady relief, like coming in from a blizzard to drop into a steaming bath.

“You do not have to give.  Let me take care of you this time.  Let me be here with you, in this dark that you do not like.  Let me keep you safe.  That is all I want.”

Svetlana opened her eyes.  Nika’s face was just inches away, her gaze still steady, lips curved into the slightest of smiles, and Svetlana was struck again by the sentry imagery that she’d had earlier.

The baby shifted inside of her, the movement not feeling so restless as before, more like a kitten finding a quiet corner and curling up to rest.

Svetlana closed her eyes again and slept.

* * *

Nika was still sleeping when Svetlana climbed out of the bed the next morning.  After putting on her jacket and shoes, she stopped just short of the doorway, turning back to watch Nika’s peaceful face.  

She should wake her up, she knew, say goodbye.  She didn’t.

When Svetlana got home and opened the door, quietly entering, it was to find Mandy and Mickey in the living room.  They were so intent on their lowered voice conversation they didn’t notice her entrance.

“He OK?” Mandy was asking her brother.  She was already dressed in her Waffle Cottage uniform, idly swinging her squirrel hat.

“Guess so,”  Mickey shrugged.  “Who the fuck knows what he took; he was totally out of it.  Woke up about an hour ago and freaked out on me; had no idea where he was,”  his tone was casual but Svetlana saw the way he bit his lip between sentences.  “I calmed him down, got him back to sleep.  Probably best thing for him right now.”

Mandy started to say something else and caught a glimpse of Svetlana, stopping abruptly.  Mickey turned to follow her gaze, his face hardening in response at the sight of her standing there.

“I gotta go to work,”  Mandy touched Mickey’s arm briefly before she made her way past Svetlana and out the door, leaving husband and wife staring at each other.

Of course Mickey didn’t ask her where she’d been.  Probably hadn’t even noticed she was gone.  He was picking up his jacket now, shrugging it on, looking around for his cigarettes and shoving them in his pocket.

“I’ll be at the Alibi,” he muttered, more to himself than her.  “If Ian wakes up looking for me, tell him I’ll be back soon.”  

It was like asking her for a favor and she could tell he hated it.  Perhaps not as much as she did.

“How long is he going to be here?”  she asked.  

Mickey ignored her.  At least until the coffee mug she’d picked up went zooming past his head, smashing on the wall behind him.

“You cannot just close your eyes and make me go away!”  

Mickey stared at her for a long moment before he stepped forward until they were face to face, his demeanor ice to her flame.  

“As. Long. As. He. Fucking. Wants,”  he bit off each word, spitting them in her face, before he turned and slammed his way out of the front door.

Svetlana stared after him for a long moment, as if she could see him through the closed door, before she turned and headed towards the bedroom.  She’d just see about that.

She was mildly surprised to find Mickey’s Orange Boy on the floor rather than in the bed.  Apparently, Mickey had expected her to return last night, for what would have been the world’s most awkward slumber party.  

The boy was facedown in the pillow, his snores sounding more like gasps for breath.  Feeling suddenly weighted down at the sight of him, closer than she’d been to him since that first afternoon, Svetlana made her way to the bed and sat down heavily on the end, taking a few deep breaths of her own.

Pumpkinhead slumbered on as she watched him, shifting restlessly every few minutes.  Svetlana had every intention of kicking him awake, and then throwing him out.  Any second now.

The minutes ticked into thirty; longer.  Her back ached from sitting still for so long, just watching.  The baby shifted restlessly inside her, making her grimace.

The boy looked gaunter than she remembered; paler, his cheekbones sharp in his face and dark circles under his eyes. It wasn't until she found herself idly thinking about making him breakfast that Svetlana realized what she was doing.  She wasn't just watching him, she was watching over him.

Exasperated with herself, Svetlana heaved an angry sigh and it was enough to do what her shouting and throwing mugs at Mickey earlier had failed to do; Orange Boy awakened with a start.

As soon as he was awake, he was struggling to sit up; Svetlana recognized the fight or flight response to waking up in unexpected surroundings.  Though a quick glance seemed to settle him; apparently he remembered enough now to realize where he was.

Any relief he’d felt at finding himself in familiar territory was clearly lost when he looked up at her.

“Good morning…”  he mumbled after a moment.  When she didn’t respond, he tried again.  “Dobroye utro?”

She was surprised by that; where the fuck had Orange Boy picked up Russian?  But the urge to settle this quickly before he gained any more ground into her hard won life was stronger than any desire she had to converse with him.  “It is afternoon.  You sleep all day.”

He nodded shakily, and without another word he stumbled to his feet.  It was clear he was sick; whatever he’d taken wasn’t treating him kindly.  Svetlana felt the tiniest stab of concern as he stumbled shakily to the doorway and disappeared down the hall to the bathroom and then a far stronger surge of annoyance at herself.  If this boy had his way, he’d take everything from her.

The baby kicked inside her, seeming to agree.  Svetlana heaved herself awkwardly to her feet.  As she made her way out of the bedroom, the claw hammer that Mandy had so recently wielded winked up at her from the desk at the corner.  She grabbed it and made her way to the bathroom.

* * *

Mickey hadn’t been pleased when Svetlana had informed him that his boytoy had left the building, but since they’d been in front of Kev and V when she told him, he couldn’t say much.  Still, he’d been much calmer than she’d expected for the rest of the night.  Maybe the return of the intruder wasn’t going to be as devastating as she’d feared.

Or so she thought.

It took Svetlana hours to notice Mickey’s absence; most of her evening had been eaten up by spending hours with Raisa in the emergency room after the stupid girl had passed out drunk with copious amounts of Nair on her pubis.  What was even more irritating was that Raisa was one of their most popular girls, and now they had to restrict her to oral only, and that was when she was when she’d be able to return to work at all.  It could be months before her blistered flesh healed.  Until then, she’d have to make herself useful in other ways - Svetlana did not have any room for freeloaders.

So when Svetlana got home, and Mickey wasn’t there, she was too tired to give it much thought.  But any cockiness she’d felt after chasing off Mickey’s boy was washed away in the cold morning light the next day when she woke up to Mickey’s empty side of the bed and the undeniable truth that she had overplayed her hand.

When she made her way out to the living room, she found Iggy and Mandy on the couch, watching cartoons through half lidded eyes and eating giant bowls of Lucky Charms.

“Did Mickey come home last night?”  Svetlana asked them both, though she already knew the answer.

Mandy’s eyes flicked to her quickly and danced away just as fast.  Neither one of them said anything.

Svetlana took a deep breath.  “Do you know where he is?”

Mandy looked up again.  “No idea,” she said, too quickly, not quite meeting Svetlana’s eyes.  It was enough to tell the tale.

Looks like she’d gotten what she wanted.  Raggedy Andy was gone.  The problem was, he’d taken Mickey with him.

She had to talk to him.  Svetlana jumped up off the couch, but as soon as she did so, there was a strange, painful ripple in her belly.

She gasped, doubling over.  

“Svetlana?”  Mandy’s voice floated over to her, concerned, but Svetlana had no time to pay attention.  Her attention was on the slow trickle down her legs, and the throbbing cramps that were shooting through her.

“Oh shit!”  That was Iggy, chiming in.  “Think the baby’s coming, Mandy!”

“No,”  Svetlana gasped.  “Not due for a few more weeks -”

“Doesn’t seem like he cares,”  Mandy had come over to take her arm, grabbing a blanket off the back of the couch to throw under her and guiding Svetlana back to a sitting position.  “You got a bag ready and shit?”

Svetlana nodded, but her mind was on a more urgent priority.  “I need Mickey,” the words came out as more of a gasp as another, sharper pain hit.  

“Yeah,”  Mandy chewed on the inside of her mouth.  “I’ll call him, but we gotta get you to a hospital now.”  

Svetlana wanted to argue, but yet another pain was snatching her breath.  “It’s...not...supposed...to...be...this...fast,” she hissed out between gritted teeth, sighing with relief when it eased.  “Hours and hours for first baby, doctor said.  It’s not supposed to be like this!”

“Doctors lie,”  Mandy shrugged.  “Iggy, go warm up the car.”  She turned back to Svetlana.  “I’ll go grab your stuff.”

“Wait!”  Svetlana stopped her.  “Give me my phone first,”  she gestured at the coffee table, just as another pain hit.

Mandy tossed her the phone and disappeared.

Svetlana tried Mickey first.  It rang once and then stopped, going straight to voicemail.  She tried again and again.  Same thing.  She finally gave up, leaving him a breathy voiced message that she was in labor.  Then she called Dolly, who screamed so loud that Svetlana was temporarily deafened in one ear.  Her former roommate promised to get Damian and come pick them up as soon as possible.

“I can’t reach Mickey,”  Svetlana told Mandy and Iggy as they helped her down the steps several minutes later to Damian’s waiting car.

Mandy bit her lip, exchanging a look with Iggy.  “I’ll get him,” she finally said.  “Go on without me.  We’ll meet you guys at the hospital as soon as we can.”

* * *

Almost as soon as Svetlana had fallen back on the thin hospital pillow she was jerked upright again by the pain of the next contraction, too close to the last one to allow her any respite in between.  She grasped Dolly’s hand tightly, a whimper escaping between her clenched teeth.

The door swung back open at the height of this latest agony, and Mandy walked in.

“Did you talk to him?  Is he coming?”  Svetlana demanded, forcing the words out.

Mandy bit her lip as she reached the bedside.  “He…”

“Please!”  Svetlana gasped.  Once again, the pain had barely abated when it started again.  “Call him again!  Tell him I am sorry, tell him he can have his Carrot Boy, tell him anything, just make him come!”

There was nothing but pity in Mandy’s eyes as she shook her head.  “He won’t.  I’m sorry.”  

“But it is his son!”  Svetlana grabbed Mandy’s hand this time, squeezing it with all the desperation within her as Mandy winced.  

If she’d really thought, deep down, that that would change anything, the last fraction of hope was lost in the lack of reaction on her sister in law’s face.  There had never been any chance that Mickey would come around.  She was truly on her own.

The next pain that tore through her was the cruelest of all, it stole all her breath and the only thing she wanted now was to reach down and tear this creature out herself to make it stop.

When it finally eased, only slightly, Svetlana became aware that the nurse had reappeared, already casually reaching in between her legs to examine her.  It was amazing how as soon as she’d walked into that sterile hospital environment her body had become less hers that it had been even at Sasha.  At least there she got paid for this kind of action.

“Looks like someone is ready to have a baby!  I’ll call the doctor,” just as quickly as she’d appeared, the nurse was gone again, and Svetlana wanted to scream after her that she couldn’t wait another minute, another second, she just wanted this done, over, it had to end or she would lose her mind.

***

“Why isn’t it coming?”  Svetlana nearly screamed the words in the doctor’s face.

“He is,” the doctor’s words were meant to be soothing, though Svetlana couldn’t read his expression, could only see the top of his head as he leaned forward between her legs.  “I can see the top of his head.  Just a few more tries.”

“You already say this twenty fucking minutes ago!”  Svetlana tore off the words.  “Get him out of me!”

The doctor chuckled drily and it was only the last minute thought that she might still need this asshole’s help that stopped Svetlana from kicking him right in his smug face.

“C’mon, baby, you got this,”  Dolly encouraged her, and her voice was far more soothing than stupid ManDoctor’s.  “Take a deep breath and let’s try again.”

“I can’t,”  Svetlana had fallen back against the pillows.  She’d never felt this drained in her life, like every single bit of energy she’d ever possessed had been leeched out by this little demon so stubbornly refusing to leave her.  It was a huge effort to even breathe or blink - she had nothing left in her.  They were going to have to pull this thing out of her or bury them both - she had nothing left to give.

On the other side of the bed, her friend Bette started to say something else but an freshly agonizing contraction seized Svetlana’s whole body and she was already instinctively sitting up again, pulling at Dolly and Bette’s hands as if pulling their strength out of them into herself.

The wave of agony seemed to go on endlessly; she was dimly aware that others were speaking to her, but nothing registered until the sudden feeling of relief.

Something white and blood-splattered had slipped into the doctor’s hands; the nurse was at his side, wiping it clean and then the next thing she knew, they’d laid it on her chest as if she’d asked them to.

Svetlana was frozen in place as this pale creature squirmed.  Tiny fists balled up, and then eyes, blue and angry, so much like his father, met hers and he let out a few choking cries.

“Get him crying!”  The nurse was encouraging her.  “Pat his back, help him out!”  

Hesitantly, she put her hand against the baby’s impossibly tiny back - she could cover him easily, she found, and patted lightly.  The feel of his warm, damp skin was another awe-inspiring shock; everything about him had her riveted, his eyes, locked onto her, his tiny, screwed up pale face, the round shape of his mouth as he struggled to cry.  He was here, her son, he was actually real, the faceless anomaly that had grown inside her all these months had been given life and form.

“He doesn’t sound right,”  someone said by her ear, and the next thing she knew, he was gone, her son, and she felt his loss keenly.  

“What are you doing with him?” Svetlana demanded of the nurse’s back who was carrying her child away.  No one answered.  They had her son on a table in the corner and he was surrounded by nurses, several more who had appeared without her realizing it.  Mandy, Bette, and Dolly had rushed over as well, and Svetlana couldn’t see anything but their backs.  The frenzied activity, the low, urgent tone of their voices, too low for her to make out what they were saying, increasing her anxiety to a fever pitch.

She tried to ease her legs out of the stirrups, but was stopped by a firm grasp.  “Easy there.  We’re not done with you yet,”  the doctor was still there, between her thighs, and she was dimly aware that the pain was building again, but as it was only a fraction of what she’d experienced before, she disregarded it.  “Is he going to be alright?”

“He’s just fine,”  the doctor smiled blandly as he worked over her, and the unconcerned patronization of his tone was no reassurance at all.  

“I want my son- !”  she started to demand and it was Dolly who saved her, reappearing at her side to squeeze her hand reassuringly.

“It’s OK, honey.  He just had some fluid in his lungs, but they got him all fixed up for you.  Look,” she nodded towards the corner and Svetlana saw the nurse lifting a soft bundle and coming towards her.

They’d swaddled him and stuck a tiny blue cap on his head.  He was crying furiously, his face pink now and full of rage, at least until the nurse placed him back into her arms.

Mandy was back at her side too, and Svetlana spared her a glance long enough to see that the younger woman actually looked emotional, blinking back tears.  “Look at my fucking nephew,”  she smiled shakily.  “He’s beautiful, Svetlana.”

Svetlana looked back at her son, and couldn’t look away.  His eyes were fixed just as intently on her.  In that instant, everything else ceased to matter.  How he’d gotten here, how much he was going to change everything, how much harder it would all be from now on. The thoughts that she’d had, even just hours ago, about giving him up, were laughably absurd now.  He was hers, and she was his.

“So...did you ever decide on a name?”  Dolly’s inquiry seemed to come from a far off distance.

It took Svetlana a long time to answer.  She’d been too lost in the baby in her arms.  But now her mind returned, to a faraway past she had tried so long to forget, to a vow made in an attic underneath a tiny skylight and a patch of stars. To her father, and all the damage his weakness had done to her.  

To the promise that she would never, ever, love someone again, never risk damaging them with all that the word implied, unless she was strong enough to back it up.  

And that’s what it was that she felt, in waves, as she held her son in her arms. _Love._

“Yevgeny,” she said. It would be a living reminder, every time she spoke it.

After all, a promise was a promise.

***

“You can let him go now, Lannie.”

“What?”  Svetlana blinked her eyes wearily, instinctively tightening her grip on her son as she felt him being pulled away from her.  

Dolly’s face swam back into view.  “You’re falling asleep, silly.  You need your rest.  I’m gonna put him in his bassinet for a little lie down.  He’ll be just fine.”

“Oh,”  Svetlana let Dolly take Yevgeny this time, albeit reluctantly.  She truly was exhausted.  She watched through dimming eyes as Dolly and the others gathered around the clear bassinet to cluck at the baby.  He would be well cared for while she slept, she could see.

But just as her eyelids closed she heard the door open.  Svetlana reluctantly opened her eyes again to see a nurse, balancing a clipboard and holding a plastic package in her hand.  She hadn’t been in the room earlier - Svetlana guessed she must be one of the new shift.  

The nurse did not introduce herself like earlier ones had; she just looked askance at the group around the bassinet until they got the picture and moved out of her way.  Then she leaned over the bassinet, blocking Svetlana’s view.   There was a sudden high pitched wail.  

“What are you doing to him?”  Svetlana was trying to jump out of the bed; it was only Bette’s restraining arms that kept her there.  “You are hurting my son!”

The nurse turned around, startled, still clutching the needle.  

“What are you doing?”  Svetlana demanded furiously, still trying to shake Bette off of her.

“Hepatitis B vaccine,” the nurse’s voice was cold, expression defensive.

“What is that?  And why do you not ask me first before you stick needle into my child?!”

The nurse shrugged.  “I didn’t think you spoke English.”

“Well, then, ask!”  It was Dolly who spoke up now.  “Or go get a fucking translator or something!  You don’t just start doing things to someone else’s child without even discussing it with them!”

The nurse put her hands on her hips.  “If you are going to be disruptive, we’ll have to ask you to leave.  All of you,”  her glance included Mandy and Bette, as well as Dolly.

“Now you think you threaten us?”  Svetlana was half out of her hospital bed.  “Get out!”  

The nurse glared at her.  “Are you refusing to allow me to care for this child?”  she asked tightly.

“I am telling you if you touch my son again, you will be glad you are already in hospital,”  Svetlana snarled back at her.

The nurse gave Svetlana a coldly derisive look before she stomped out of the door.  There was an immediate uproar of angry voices at her exit, but Mandy didn’t chime in.  Svetlana watched her as she walked quietly to the door, putting her fingers over her lips at them warningly before she opened it quietly and slipped out.

About two minutes later Mandy was back, face pale.  “Pack the baby up,” her voice was tense.  “I overheard that bitch talking.  They’re going to call Child Protective Services and report that you’re not allowing proper medical treatment.  Let’s get the hell out of here before the state paid kidnappers show up.”

There were gasps all around.  Svetlana went ice-cold.  How could this be happening already? She’d had her child hours ago, and already the universe was conspiring to take him from her.

“Don’t worry,”  Mandy bent over her to help Svetlana to her feet.  “We’re getting the hell out of here before they can do anything.  You didn't put our real address on any of the paperwork, did you?”

Svetlana snorted.  “Of course not,” she gasped in pain as she finally got to her feet.  Thank God for the others; they’d already packed up the plastic issue hospital bag with every freebie they’d been given and anything of value that could be stripped from the room.

Bette was hurriedly dressing Yevgeny in a tiny onesie and wrapping the bassinet blanket around him tightly.  He whimpered, but did not began screaming again, as if even he understood the need for stealth.

Dolly had been in hurried conversation on her cell.  She tapped it closed.  “Damian was already on his way to see the baby - says he can meet us in the parking lot in five minutes.  Let’s get while the gettin’s still good!”

Dolly, Mandy, and Bette kept Svetlana and Yevgeny in between the three of them as they made their way quietly down the corridor.  Every step was agony for Svetlana - she’d been in no way ready to start moving around again, but it couldn’t be helped.  So she did her best to keep up as they rushed her towards the elevator, praying the whole time Yevgeny would not start crying and attract attention.

Thankfully it was very early and the hospital was quiet, the lower level nearly deserted.  They were out a side door, frantically waving at Damian as he carefully made his way through the parking lot, in just a matter of minutes.

“You know, the security in this place really isn’t worth shit,”  Dolly said indignantly as Damian pulled alongside them.  “I’ll bet if someone wanted to, they could just walk right up into that nursery and take one of those babies!”

“You’re complaining because we’re getting away?”  Mandy looked askance at her before she yanked open the car door.

Just as they were climbing into the car, Bette gasped.  She was looking towards the front entrance of the hospital.  The nurse was standing there, hands on her hips as she looked around, flanked by a bored looking security guard.  Svetlana’s stomach dropped when she saw the woman look in their direction and then began pointing, talking rapidly to her companion.

 _“Go go go!”_  Dolly urged her boyfriend, still climbing in.  Damian needed no further impetus, hitting the gas hard and careening towards the exit as they struggled to slam the back door shut.  As they passed the red faced, furious nurse, Dolly stuck her tiny hands out the open window and treated the woman to double fuck you fingers.  

As they zoomed down the road, Svetlana was squeezed into the corner, still holding Yevgeny tightly, her feet on top of a haphazard pile of Damian’s textbooks.  Next to her Mandy was practically in Bette’s lap, and in the front seat Dolly was still trying to get herself adjusted.  

There was a long, strained silence as they got further and further away from the hospital, punctuated by their mutual gasps for breath.  Then, as one, they all began to laugh.

* * *

The rush of relief Svetlana had felt absconding the hospital with Yevgeny was short lived.  Mickey had never responded to her several voicemails.  In the last few, she’d requested that he at least buy a few things for his son in preparation for their arrival.  But when they arrived back at the house, it was exactly the same as when she’d left it.  There was nothing there.  No bassinet to lay her child in.  No diapers.  Nothing.  

She shouldn’t have even been surprised at this blatant reminder that she and her child meant less than nothing to the man she married, and yet it was still a fiercely painful blow.

“Where is he?”  she turned to Mandy, her voice eerily calm, not yet able to represent the storm building inside of her.

“I...don’t know,”  Mandy mumbled after a minute.

“There is nothing here for Yevgeny!  No bed, no diapers, no changing table, not even a blanket!  I gave Mickey all of my money and what has he done with it?  Who is he spending it on, his fucking Orange Boy?”

Mandy gasped at that.  “You know?  About Ian?”

“I have always known,”  Svetlana brushed her off impatiently.  “That is who he is with now, isn’t he?  While his wife and child come home to empty house with nothing!”

Mandy’s guilty silence was answer enough.

“Tell me where he is, Mandy,”  Svetlana’s voice was low, deadly.

Mandy remained silent.

“What about him, huh?”  Svetlana gestured at Yevgeny.  “No matter what your brother, or you, or anyone thinks about me, what did he ever do to deserve this?  To not even have place to lie his head?  Mickey cannot have it both ways!  He cannot have me as way to pretend, to lie to the world and your father, and still not take care of us!  I have done my part.  It is time for him to do his.   _Tell me where he is_.”

Mandy sighed, looking again at Yevgeny.  “He’s at Ian’s.  It’s not far.  I can show you.”

“Wait,”  Svetlana handed her sister in law the baby.  “Let me change.  Then we go.”

She hurried into the bedroom, peeling herself out of her soaked sweats.  A glimpse in the mirror confirmed she looked as disgusting as she felt.  There was no way she was facing Mickey like this; she felt vulnerable enough as it was.  

Twenty minutes later Svetlana had redressed and powdered and painted her pale face with as much makeup as she could.  Once she’d added her thick coat, the only thing the mirror reflected back at her was steely resolve.  Not the fact that she couldn’t stop shaking from anger mixed with exhaustion and residual pain, that she was still bleeding from childbirth.   That her whole body was screaming out to crawl into a bed and sleep for a week.  

She came out of the bathroom to find Mandy rocking Yevgeny.  Her son was sleeping, impossibly tiny eyelids closed fast.  Svetlana looked at him and felt that rush of tenderness and wonderment all over again.  

“Let’s go,” she said as she reached for him, cradling him carefully against her chest.

It was far too cold to walk, so Mandy used Kenyatta’s car to drive them the couple of blocks.  Svetlana sat in the back, Yevgeny clutched to her, and looked nervously out the window for cops the whole minute and ½ ride, cursing Mickey all over again.  It was obscene that she had to do this, track down her wayward husband instead of just be able to go home and take care of her son.  Beyond humiliating that she would have to crawl to him and beg for the barest of basics to keep their son fed and clothed, when she’d worked every day and almost every night and handed over to him nearly every penny she’d made.  

By the time they pulled up to a small gray house, Svetlana was boiling.  She jumped out almost as soon as the car stopped moving.  Mandy leaned over the seat anxiously to look up at her.  “You want me to come in?  Or hold Yevgeny for you?”

“No.  I want him to see his son,”  Svetlana clenched her jaw tightly.  

Mandy sighed.  “I’ll wait out here,” she said finally.  

Svetlana marched up the steps and knocked on the door.  

Carrot Boy answered.  If she hadn’t been holding Yevgeny, she would have hit him.  She settled for pushing past him instead.

Mickey was sitting on the sofa, flipping through the magazine as if he didn’t have a care in the world.  The sight made her blood boil all over again.  He looked stunned to see her coming at him, as if he’d forgotten that and their child existed at all.

“What do you want?” he demanded.  Yevgeny was uncovered, in her arms, looking out at the world around him with fascination, and yet Mickey never spared him a glance.

“So sister knows where you are, but not mother of your child?”  She willed him to look, really look, at the child in her arms.  See his own eyes reflected back.  

But Mickey was already retreating, walking away into the kitchen.  She was right on his heels, nearly out of breath with the effort it took to keep up; stop him from slipping away.

“When are you coming home?”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “Not coming home.”

Svetlana could feel the panic start to close her throat.  All these months spent trying to scale the wall between her and Mickey and he’d built it higher than ever.  Fortified it with his fucking boy toy.  Now he thought he had an excuse.

“Seven pounds, six ounces. Weight of your child, if you care..”

“Fat little fuck, isn’t he?”  Mickey reached for his coat and began to pull it on as she watched him in disbelief.  He was really doing this.  Walking out on her.  Walking out on his own son.  Somehow, Svetlana hadn’t been able to believe in this possibility before, even with his undeniable lack of enthusiasm towards fatherhood.  She’d been so sure that if he could just see Yevgeny, it would change everything.  That he would not be able to see this tiny human piece of himself and not care.  But Mickey refused to even look.

“I do everything I can so he doesn’t turn into piece of shit like you!”  she spat at him, wanting to gouge holes in his indifference, wanting him to feel shamed.

Svetlana barely listened to Mickey’s returned snarl about how many upstanding citizens she’d blown.  He was going, she could feel him slipping away even as he still stood there.  

The only thing she truly wanted to do was grab a knife from the butcher block on the counter and practice her aim, but she tried again anyway, for Yevgeny.

“We need money, stroller, changing pads - “

“Go to work!”  Mickey barked at her.  

Svetlana’s hand tingled with the desire to hit him at that, but she held fast, trying her best to keep make him understand.  She was babbling about Raisa and her pubic burns almost nonsensically in her nervousness.

“I’m supposed to pay some whore on the down low to baby sit?”   

“You could watch him,”  she fired back.  

“I got better shit to do,” his tone was completely indifferent.  He looked at her, eyes drifting over the baby in her arms, and there was nothing.  Not the slightest flicker.  He might as well have been made of stone.

She’d never hated anyone more in her life.

Every cruel hand in her past, every lie, every betrayal, that was nothing compared to him in this moment.  Those people had only hurt her.  Mickey was hurting her child.  Condemning him to the same resentment and indifference that had nearly killed her growing up.  All that pain she’d been so desperate to spare her son, and Mickey was living proof that she was powerless to do so.

That hate bubbled out of her throat, into the words she spat at him next.

“Like what, do ass fuck with Orange Boy?”  

She had him at that.  Finally, a flicker of something other than apathy.  Something that looked a lot like fear.

Good.  Let him be afraid.  She’d been living in fear for months.  If he didn’t want to share in raising their son, he could share that instead.

“Watch yourself,”  Mickey’s voice had dropped several octaves, low and threatening.  He moved closer to her, glaring at her, and she nearly laughed.  

“You think you scare me?  You are 130 pounds of Ukrainian pussy,” she spat at him, and she didn’t stop there, couldn’t stop, throwing her words at him as if they were knives.

“What do you think your father would say if he knew you spent all day with Orange Boy, rubbing your dicks together?  Five hundred dollars tomorrow or I call him,”

The look that Mickey shot her at that was pure hatred, a mirror of her own.  Svetlana accepted that with a bitter satisfaction.  As far as she was concerned, he didn’t have anyone to blame but himself.  She had tried to play the good wife.  For months, she had tried.  She was done crawling for his acceptance, his forgiveness.  It was becoming increasingly clear to her that the only thing she could ever do to make Mickey happy was to disappear forever.

And it was far too late for that.  It was from the moment he’d slipped that ring on her finger.  

Mandy did not ask her how it had gone when Svetlana had stumbled back into the car.  The look on her face was probably enough to tell the story anyway.  She stayed silent the short ride home.  When they finally got inside, she dug around her in her pocket until she found a crumpled ten dollar bill, and pressed it into Iggy’s hand with a mumbled request for him to buy diapers.

With that, she nearly ran, carrying Yevgeny, into the bedroom.  He’d been quiet the whole disastrous confrontation with his father, but now he balled up his tiny face, blinked those blue eyes at her, and began to wail.

“I’m sorry,” she set him down on the bed, whispering to him.  His tiny face felt cold, the receiving blanket from the hospital not nearly enough to keep him warm. In lieu of a real baby blanket, she snatched one of her long sweaters from where it hung and wrapped him up in that, tucking in his chilly hands and feet carefully, using the sleeves to secure him.

“I’m sorry,’ she said again as he began to sob in earnest and she was crying too.  She hugged Yevgeny to her chest, stroking his tiny back, making shushing sounds through her tears, hating herself for her weakness.  Her first, most important promise to her son, shattered before his first sunset.  

But she would make it better.  Maybe she couldn’t make Mickey love their son, but she could certainly make him take care of Yevgeny.  And she would.

* * *

Svetlana was surprised when Mickey actually came through, delivering the five hundred dollars she’d demanded the very next night.  She had a few seconds of hope that perhaps his haste meant that he regretted rejecting their son too.  He couldn’t be that afraid of her bluff or of Terry - the man was safely locked away where he couldn’t hurt any of them.

Any hopes of Mickey coming around were lost quickly when the days passed by and he still did not come home.  He barely came to the Alibi either; often just showing up at the end of the night to collect the evening’s earnings.  At least now he parted with enough for her to somewhat cover daily expenses, but the pure loathing in his eyes whenever he looked at her told her that was anything but voluntary.  Svetlana tried her best not to care.  After all, she hated him too.  Still, on Yevgeny’s behalf, she mourned for what could have been.

By the end of Yevgeny’s first week, Svetlana was more exhausted than she’d ever been in her life.  It wasn’t just the sleepless nights with a newborn; it was a marrow deep mental exhaustion that constantly urged her to stop trying, to just sit down and give up.  She managed to keep going through sheer force of will.

That night, instead of going straight home, Svetlana talked Paco into giving her and Yevgeny a ride to Dolly’s.  Visiting her old abode was still a risky endeavor, especially since she still hadn’t delivered on  her promise to deliver drugs to Sasha.  At least it was unlikely that Sasha would ever find out.  Besides, Svetlana would have risked quite a bit to see a friendly face at this point.  

At least Dolly seemed relatively happy to see her, if more subdued than usual.  She threw open the door wide as Svetlana carried in Yevgeny in his carseat.  “Look at him!”  she cooed when Svetlana set the carrier on the couch.  “He’s already so much bigger!  Hi there!”  she gently tickled him under the chin.  

“Your new roommates home?”  Svetlana asked as she tossed her coat onto the couch.

Dolly grimaced.  “Nah, they went out somewhere.”

“You OK?”  Svetlana had wandered over to the kitchen to peruse the contents of Dolly’s fridge, but something in the other woman’s tone had her peering back over the fridge door at her.

“I guess,”  Dolly shrugged.  She was definitely not her usual cheery self.  “Hey, while you’re in there, can you move the dishes back down from the upper cupboards?  I tried to tell my roomies that I couldn’t reach them if they put them up there, but… language barrier, I guess.”

“Probably did it on purpose,”  Svetlana said, pushing aside Dolly’s step stool with her foot to reach into the cupboard and retrieve stacks of plates, setting them on the countertop.  

“Probably.  Bitches,”  Dolly said sourly, climbing on to the couch.

“What is wrong with you?”  Svetlana asked.  She’d found a jar of pickled cucumbers, and she took it to the counter now, opening the jar and spearing one as she waited for Dolly to reply.  “Stupid roommates make you this sad?”

“It’s not them,”  Dolly shook her head.  “Maybe a little.  I miss the way things used to be, when it was you, me, and Arian.  Like....what the hell am I doing?  With my life, I mean?  I kept telling myself I was having so much fun.  Maybe I was, for a while,”  Dolly slumped back until the couch.

“Where the hell do I go from here?  I know I can’t be a hooker forever.  The way I’m feeling now, I don’t even think I want to be one tomorrow.  But what else can I do?  I’m a college dropout, ex-junkie with a bunch of busts for solicitation on my record and a string of midget porn films that are gonna follow me around forever.  God,”  she leaned forward, rubbing her eyes, her tiny feet hanging a good distance from the floor.  “Lannie, I think I fucked my whole life just to get back at my parents.”

Svetlana chewed silently, thinking.  When she was free to talk, she left the tiny kitchenette and walked over to join Dolly on the couch.

“So what, then?”  she asked Dolly as she settled back, folding her hands with a sigh.  “You have never been one to give up.  Why start now?”

Dolly just shook her head mutely.  “I just don’t know what to do, Lannie.”

Svetlana pondered this for a long moment.  “Maybe you start at the beginning.”

Dolly stared at her.  “You mean, with my parents?”  she demanded, her voice rising.

Svetlana shrugged.  “What did they do to you that was so bad?  Besides pretending you are not small person?”

“Little person,”  Dolly corrected.  “And...that was it, I guess.  They told me my whole life that it was just fine to be me.  That they loved me exactly how I was.  But they acted just the opposite.  They wanted so bad for me to blend in.  And I wasn’t ever gonna blend in, Lannie.”

Svetlana was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again.  “Do they wonder where you are, do you think?  Look out the window, remember you, wish you were home?  Do you think they worry?”

“I don’t know,”  Dolly looked at the ground.  “Maybe,”  she hesitated.  “Probably,” she admitted without looking up.

“My mother doesn’t,”  Svetlana reached for a stubbed out cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table.  She picked up the lighter next to it, lit it, and blew the smoke in Dolly’s direction.  “She does not think of me at all.  My brother and sister, they don’t either.  There is nothing left to remind them.  I was ghost already when I was there.  I am truly dead to them now.”

Dolly looked up, expression aghast.  “You don’t know that, Lannie,”  she began, but Svetlana was already shaking her head.

“I do,”  she said quietly.  “Not all parents love their children.  That is life.  It is better for me to understand this now then wish for something that could never be.  But for you, it is different.  Your parents make stupid mistakes and they hurt you.  You make stupid mistakes and hurt them right back.  But you still love them and you know they love you too.  Maybe it is time to forgive them, yeah?  Forgive yourself, too.  Then maybe you find home is not so far away after all.”

Dolly turned her head away so Svetlana couldn’t see her expression.  “How did you get so smart, Lannie?”

“I watch lots of bullshit daytime television,”  Svetlana shrugged.

Dolly laughed at that.  “I got a lot to think about, I guess,” she murmured after a moment.  Before Svetlana could comment, she edged forward, her face brightening.  “But enough about me!  I want to hear all about you!  How’s everything going with your new business venture?”

Svetlana groaned lightly at that.  “Slow.  You were smart to come back here when you did.  I thought we were saving us from starving in the streets.  Now I think we all still starve, just much slower.”

“Aw, hon,”  Dolly patted her hand.  “If anyone can figure it out, it’s you and that husband of yours.  Put your heads together.  You’ll figure it out much faster that way.”

Svetlana scoffed at that.  “He does not want to put anything together with me,”  she folded her arms tightly across her chest, clenching her jaw.

“Uh oh,”  Dolly clearly recognized the storm brewing.  “He still got that boy on his mind?”

“It is worse than that,”  Svetlana turned to face her, unable to bank her indignation any longer.  “He brought him home.  To our bed!”

“What?”  Dolly looked genuinely shocked at that.

It was a relief to have her to unload on; it didn’t take much prodding at all before the entire story was spilling out.  

“Why is he doing this?”  Svetlana could not hide her frustration.  “It is one thing to sneak around with men if he has to.  He has to have this Pumpkinhead.  He brings him home, he disappears with him…he is throwing away everything and I do not understand why!”   

“Lannie, haven’t you ever wanted something so much that you just had to throw yourself into it and hope for the best, even when you knew there was no sense in it?”

Svetlana’s eyes narrowed.  “No,” she snapped.

“Really?”  Dolly raised her eyebrows skeptically.

Svetlana glared at her for a moment before she dropped back against the cushions in defeat.  “Katya was different,”  she conceded quietly after a moment.  “I loved her.”

Dolly looked at her expectantly.  

“No,”  Svetlana shook her head.  “Mickey doesn’t love this boy.  He couldn’t.  He would need a heart for that.  He has none,” she thought again of Mickey’s cold eyes, his refusal to even acknowledge the baby in her arms.  The idea of that same man actually loving someone was laughable.  No, Mickey was just thinking with his penis, like most men.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,”  Dolly said quietly.  “Some people - they hide it well.  Like you.”

“He is not like me!”  Svetlana burst out furiously.

“OK, OK!”  Dolly held up her hands in surrender.  “Calm down, Lannie, it was just a thought.”

Tense silence descended at that, stretching on for several minutes.  Just as Svetlana was about to suggest that she go, Dolly spoke again.

“Well, if you can’t beat him, why let him have all the fun?”  she smiled widely.  “You seen Nika lately?”

Svetlana was immediately tense all over again.  “At work,” she said  and Dolly’s face fell.  After a moment, she sighed.  “Once,” she admitted.  “I spent the night with her.”

“Really?!”  Dolly looked beyond pleased at this.  “Tell me more!”

“It is not like you think.  Nothing happened,”  Svetlana looked at Dolly’s expectant expression.  She bit her lip, unable to continue the lie, remembering all over again the things that Nika had said to her.  “Maybe something happened.  But it was a mistake.”

“Why a mistake?”  Dolly demanded now, swinging her short legs furiously, eyes locked on Svetlana.

Svetlana exhaled impatiently.  “I am new mother with baby and shithead husband to deal with.  I do not have time to deal with Nika too.  And I…”  she closed her eyes for a moment.  “I would not know what to do anyway.  I don’t know what she wants.”

“Maybe she just wants to spend some time with you.  To know that you feel the same.”

“I do not feel - “  Svetlana looked at Dolly’s smug expression and huffed in exasperation.   “Why do you care so much, anyway?”

Dolly’s grin faded.  She got off the couch to face Svetlana.  “Because you're my best friend, Lannie.  And I don't think Katya should have been the only bit of happiness you ever got to have.”

Before Svetlana could reply there was a quiet tap at the door.  A few seconds later it opened and a grinning Damian stuck his head in.  “Alright, let Uncle Damian at that baby!”

***

Svetlana didn’t stay long after Damian’s arrival - she was just too tired to hang out, as much as she had missed her friends.  

The exhaustion was even more pronounced as she lugged Yevgeny up the steps in his car seat.  Thankfully, he was asleep, and hopefully would stay that way.

Of course she’d wished for peace and quiet too soon.  Her phone went off just as she reached the porch.

“Where are my pills?”  Sasha demanded as soon as Svetlana answered.

“I need more time,”  Svetlana hated the pleading tone in her voice but she couldn’t help it.  She’d been dancing around having to bring any of this up to Mickey.  Any more pressure, and she felt sure she’d break into two.

“You would turn days into years if I let you,”  Sasha snapped.  “I will give you until the end of the week, then I send Ivan over.  If you do not have my supply by then, he’ll take a finger instead.  Understand?”  she clicked off the call without another word.

“Shit,”  Svetlana mumbled to herself.  She pushed the door open, almost falling inside the house.  Thankfully, Yevgeny slumbered on as Svetlana carefully sat him on the couch, still strapped into his seat.

The TV was on and blaring but the living room was empty.  Svetlana hurriedly turned down the volume, and then she could hear the clank of dishes from the kitchen, accompanied by breathy whispers and giggles.

She followed the source of the noise to find Iggy and Tasha pressed up against the counter, making out.  They were surrounded by full grocery bags, covering every surface and the floor as well.  

“Hey!”  Tasha pulled herself away from Iggy long enough to greet Svetlana.

“So you finally made it across threshold,”  Svetlana smirked at her as she shrugged out of her coat, throwing it across the dining room chair.  “What do you think?”

“It’s a dump,” Tasha said cheerfully, and then she and Iggy were making out again.

“Where did all this come from?”  Svetlana looked at the bags of groceries.

“Oh, this guy followed Tasha from the El.  Thought he could fuck with her,”  Iggy came up for air long enough to say.

Svetlana raised her eyebrows at that, not sure what that had to do with why they had come home with at least a couple hundred dollars worth of groceries.

Iggy grinned at her confusion.  “Let him think she was alone til he made his move.  Then we stomped the shit out of him, took his money and his cards and made us give him his pin numbers.  It was fuckin’ awesome.  Man, you should have heard him crying!”  He displayed his bloody knuckles proudly.

 _“Stop kicking me, it hurts, it hurts!”_  Tasha mimicked, laughing uproariously.  “Shouldn’t have tried to pull me into the alley, motherfucker.  He ain’t gonna try that shit again any time soon.”

“He ain’t gonna _walk_ again any time soon: I definitely heard something break,”  Iggy looked beyond pleased with himself at that.

“Oh, hang on,”  Tasha bent down, sorting through the bags and then stood up and offered one to Svetlana.  “We got you diapers!”

“Thank you,” Svetlana took their offering, not quite sure if she should be touched or terrified.

She spent the next several minutes helping Iggy and Tasha put the rest of their loot away.  They’d bought enough food to keep the household stocked for at least a couple of weeks.  

“Just thought I should pull my weight if I’m gonna be here for a little while,” Tasha explained when Svetlana remarked on it.

“You will be staying here?”  

Tasha shrugged.  “Sick of home and listening to all the bitching about me hooking up with a Milkovich.”

Svetlana snorted.  “Terry doesn’t him dating you, your family does not want you dating him.  Like southside Romeo and Juliet.”

Tasha giggled at that, following Svetlana to the living room.

Wearily, Svetlana collapsed on the couch next to her still sleeping son, rubbing her forehead.

“Bad night?”  Tasha asked abruptly, setting back in the old easy chair. “Tell me about it.  Maybe I can help.”

Startled, Svetlana looked up at her.  “Why would you want to do that?”  she asked.  “You barely know me.”

“The fuck does that matter?  I know my people when I see them,”  Tasha leaned back in the chair.  “So, lay it on me.”

Despite Tasha’s good intentions, Svetlana knew there was nothing the other woman could do for her, and yet, without warning, the words were spilling out anyway.  She stumbled through a short explanation of what had happened with Sasha, and how she was expected to supply the pimp with pills - and what she feared would happen if she didn’t.

Iggy had come in with a fresh tray of pizza rolls halfway through Svetlana’s story.  When she was finished, he and Tasha exchanged looks.  

“Damn,”  he finally muttered.

“Babe, you got access to that shit,”  Tasha said after a moment.  

“Yeah, but…”  Iggy scratched the back of his neck.  “I mean, I kinda thought you wanted me to go legit.”

Tasha looked even more confused at that.  “Yeah, but she’s family.  And it’s not like you’re not already dealing -”  she broke off at the small, abashed smile on Iggy’s face.  “What’s going on?”

Iggy shuffled his feet, still smiling.  “I got a job.”

“A job?”  Both Tasha and Svetlana stared at him.  “Like an...actual job?  With a paycheck and everything?  Doing something legal?”  Tasha’s eyes were getting wider by the second.

“Yeah,”  Iggy looked embarrassed, but pleased.  “It’s just a warehouse job, moving shit around on forklifts, loading trucks, that kinda shit, but it pays ok and it’s got benefits,” he waited a moment, but when Tasha stayed silent his smile faded.  “Hey, this was your fucking idea,” his tone was turning defensive.  “If you didn’t really mean it - “ his words were lost when Tasha launched herself at him, sounding like she was laughing and crying at the same time.

After several long minutes, the two of them finally resurfaced.  “Hey, Svet,”  Iggy continued as if they’d never been interrupted. “Why can’t Mickey get this shit for you?  He’d probably be fucking happy about the extra money.”

“I don’t want him to know,”  Svetlana admitted after a moment’s hesitation.  She stiffened defensively at Iggy’s confused expression.  “I don’t trust him.  He hates me.  You know that is true.  He would do anything to get rid of me.  I am not going to give him something else to use against me.”

Iggy looked like he wanted to argue for a minute before he nodded slowly.  “Yeah, well…” he shuffled his feet, exchanging another look with Tasha.  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you the stuff.”

“No,” Svetlana started to protest, feeling a sudden surge of guilt.  “You don’t have to -”

“Nah, Tasha’s right.  You and the kid are family.  Just let me know what you need.”

Svetlana bit her lip.  “Thank you,” she finally managed.  

Iggy grinned.  “Words are cheap.  You can thank me with 15% of the take.”  

“Deal.”  Svetlana held out her hand, and they shook on it with mock solemnity.

The sense of relief that Tasha and Iggy had left her with lingered long after they’d gone to bed.  Svetlana was almost asleep herself, too tired to move off of the couch, when she heard the front door open and opened half lidded eyes to see Mandy come in.

“Hey,”  Mandy waved at her half-heartedly as she passed, making her way into the kitchen.  

“Have a good night?”  Svetlana asked, yawning, as she belatedly noticed that Mandy was not wearing her Waffle Cottage uniform.

“Dinner with friends,” Mandy muttered, her voice strangely evasive.

“No Kenyatta tonight?”  Svetlana called after her as she heard Mandy open the refrigerator.

“Night shift.  He’ll be home in a couple of hours,”  there was a long silence after that, and then Mandy stuck her head out of the kitchen.  “Did someone rob a fucking Aldi’s?”

“In a way,”  Svetlana shrugged.  “Tasha and Iggy,” she offered.

Mandy nodded.  Clearly that was explanation enough.  “She still here?”

Svetlana nodded.  “Said something about staying.”

“Nice.  Can’t be for too long though, not with Terry coming home,”  Mandy exited the kitchen with a handful of cheese sticks.

Svetlana sat up abruptly.   _“What?”_

Mandy flung herself into the battered chair Tasha had been occupying earlier.  “Yeah.  He called earlier today; thinks he’ll be out in a week or two,”  her face was carefully expressionless.

“I don’t understand,”  Svetlana burst out.  “He violated parole!”

“Yeah, and?”  Mandy unwrapped a cheese stick and pulled a long strip off of it, avoiding Svetlana’s eyes.

“And he has done it too many times before, yes?”  Svetlana demanded.  “I thought that means he stays in jail for long time?”

“Three months _is_ a long time around here.  Overcrowding, you know.”

Svetlana dropped back on the couch, the useless protest drying on her tongue and the earlier relief she’d felt washing away.  

Mandy looked at her then, and Svetlana saw a ghost of her own dread in Mandy’s resigned expression.  

“You get lock for your door?”  Svetlana asked her quietly.

Mandy’s eyes danced away.  She gave a short, abrupt nod, then got up and went to her room without speaking again.  Svetlana watched her go, the sinking feeling getting worse by the second.  After her careful planning, after what she had risked turning Terry in, he was coming back.  Like a slasher in a horror film that keeps crawling out of the grave after he’s supposed to be dead.  

So apparently, Mickey had reason to be afraid after all.  Svetlana felt a twinge of guilt at that realization, but quickly pushed it away.  The bigger concern was that Mickey was still running around with his boyfriend though his father’s return was imminent.  He couldn’t be stupid enough to not realize that it had to end, and sooner rather than later.  There was no choice now.  Whether Mickey liked it or not, he was going to have to come home.

* * *

The news about Terry seemed to be just the tip of the bad tidings that continued to pour in over the next few days.  While Svetlana was at work, Mandy and Kenyatta had some kind of blow out.  She came home to find her sister in law missing and the bathroom looking like a crime scene.  Raisa tried to fill Svetlana in on what she missed, but as the girl was half drunk, most of her narrative made little sense.  

It wasn’t hard for Svetlana to piece the details together herself though.  Kenyatta had beaten the shit of out of Mandy in return for some imaginary or real transgression - didn’t matter which.  Her concern for Mandy was mitigated slightly by the resentment she felt upon hearing that Mickey was providing his sister sanctuary at his lover’s home.  

Mandy’s absence didn’t last long though.  Svetlana left the Alibi early the next day - she’d brought Yevgeny to work with her and he’d been particularly fussy, screaming if anyone but her tried to hold him, rapidly making trying to work pointless.  When she’d walked in the house, she’d found a subdued Mandy making Kenyatta lunch.  

Svetlana didn’t bother to comment on that depressing spectacle. Mandy wasn’t going to listen to anyone.  She wouldn’t let go of Kenyatta until she was well and truly ready.  Svetlana just hoped it was before that bastard killed her.

She was in the bedroom changing Yevgeny when she heard shouting.  She bounced the whimpering baby against her chest, shushing him as she tried to listen.

Svetlana was more than a little surprised to hear Mickey’s voice - maybe he’d come to fetch his sister again, or finally chase Kenyatta off.  She was about to leave the bedroom to join them when she heard another, unfamiliar voice.  Him.

Fresh anger and shock washed over her at the sound.  She stayed where she was, listening to the voices, vaguely aware that the boy was threatening Kenyatta, an endeavor she’d be deeply sympathetic to if it was anyone else.  

It was only a minute before the voices quieted and she heard the front door slam.  Svetlana waited a few more seconds to make sure they were really gone before she exited the bedroom.

She moved past Kenyatta without comment and into the kitchen.

Mandy was turned away from her, staring into the pan of spaghetti sauce on the stove like it held all the secrets of the universe.

“Your brother is fucking idiot,”  Svetlana snapped.  “He will not listen to me.  You have to talk to him.”

Mandy looked up at her involuntarily and Svetlana’s anger was doused abruptly by the sight of the tears making their way down her sister in law’s face.

Mandy’s eyes narrowed immediately and she glared at Svetlana as she wiped her eyes quickly, obviously angry at being caught in a rare moment of vulnerability.

“You OK?”  Svetlana moved closer to her, shifting Yevgeny to the opposite shoulder so she could put a cautious hand on Mandy’s arm.

Mandy took a deep, shuddering breath.  “There’s something wrong with him,” she whispered.

“Mickey?”  Svetlana asked.

Mandy shook her head.  “Ian.”

That made no kind of sense to Svetlana...in her opinion, there was something wrong with anyone who _didn’t_ want to kill Kenyatta, but she kept that to herself.  

“He is your friend?”  she asked instead, the question spilling out before she could rethink it.  

“Best friend,”  Mandy’s voice was still barely audible.

“Yeah?  Where has he been all this time, then?”  Svetlana’s temper was starting to flare again.

Mandy looked away once more without answering.

“You need better friends,”  Svetlana bit off as she turned to leave the kitchen.  

The landline phone in the living room shrilled just then.  A second’s hesitation, then Svetlana hurried to grab it to give Mandy a moment to collect herself.

“This is a collect call from an inmate in Cook County Jail,” an electronic voice boomed in her ear.  “Press 1 to accept charges.  2 to decline, or simply hang up.”

Her finger hovered wistfully over the 2 before Svetlana pressed 1.

“Hello, Terry,”  she hoped the strain of merely speaking politely to him didn’t show in her voice.  

“Svet!”  Terry boomed in her ear.  “Did you hear the good news?  I’m getting out soon!”

“Yes,”  Svetlana clutched the phone tightly in her hand at that.  “Wonderful,” she forced out.  “You want Mandy?  She is right here.”

“Naw, I talked to her yesterday.  Catch me up!  How’s the kid?  Man, I’m sorry I missed the birth.   I’m a fucking grandfather, can you believe that shit?  I can’t wait to see him!”

She murmured something polite at that.

“Yevgeny, huh?”  To her surprise, Terry pronounced it correctly.  “Wouldn’t have been my choice, but I like it.  Good name.  Keep him proud of his heritage.  Mandy says he looks just like Mickey.  How’s Mickey anyway?  How’s he adjusting to fatherhood?”

“Who knows?  He is never here,”  Svetlana snapped, the irritation of the last few minutes, coupled with having to make small talk with Terry getting the best of her.

“What the hell are you talking about?”  the sudden rise of Terry’s tone sent alarm bells ringing.  

“I -”  she stuttered, mentally smacking herself.  Goddammit, why had she opened her big mouth?

“Mickey’s not there?  Where the fuck is he then?”  Terry was definitely getting agitated.  

“No, I mean -”  she forced herself to continue.  “He is so busy at work all the time.  Is like he never sees Yevgeny at all.  I just - wish he was home more,”  she bit her lip and forced herself to stop talking before she dug herself in deeper.

“Yeah,”  Terry’s voice still held a note of suspicion.  “Good thing he’s working, but a boy needs his dad around.  Too much mothering and he’ll turn into a little pussy bitch.”

Svetlana clenched her mouth tightly closed at that.  Terry was still talking in the background, but the sound of upraised voices outside distracted her.  She walked over the window, pulling back the dusty curtain slightly.  

She’d thought they were long gone, but Mickey and his boy were standing on the sidewalk in front of the house.  Mickey was yelling at him, something she couldn’t quite make out, especially not with Terry babbling in her other ear.  Despite the fact that he was yelling, he didn’t look truly angry.  He looked...worried, perhaps.  Scared, even.

“...and that’s why you being there for him is so important, you know?”  It was only the more urgent note of Terry’s voice that drew her back into the conversation.

She bit back the ‘what?’ as hard as she could.  “Of course,” she murmured politely, no idea what he was talking about.

“Because you keep him on the right path,”  Terry was still talking, and she tapped her foot impatiently in response.  “And that’s we gotta do, we gotta keep Mickey on the right path.  Make sure his head is in the game.  Avoid letting him get distracted.  You gotta do your part, and I gotta do mine.  Keep him away from bad influences.”

She didn’t say anything.  She had a sinking feeling she knew where this was going.

“So, that redhead faggot been creeping around?  That why Mickey ain’t taking his responsibilities seriously?”  Underneath Terry’s casual tone, she could hear the seething anger.  

Svetlana took a deep breath, then released it, remaining silent.

“Answer me,”  Terry’s voice was very quiet now.  “Because if he has been, I can take care of it.  One phone call, and and that little fruit is history.”

She took one last look.  Mickey’s boy was striding down the sidewalk.  Mickey took a look around, then walked hurriedly after him.  He looked so much younger at the moment - a lot like that battered and bloodied boy she’d seen when she’d first walked through the door of this hellhole.

She let the curtain fall.  “No.  I have not seen him.”

* * *

“Mickey is still not home,”  Svetlana informed Dolly dourly the next night later.  They were at The Alibi, finishing a couple of beers during a lull in the activity upstairs.  “Terry is coming in two days.  Says he will be there for Yevgeny’s baptism.  And Mickey is still off with his fucking Orange Boy.”

“Why do you keep calling him that?” Dolly picked up her beer again.   “The kid has a name, you know.”

“Not to me,”  Svetlana snapped, draining her own beer.

Dolly sighed before she reached out to pat Svetlana’s hand.  “It’ll be OK.  He’s probably just having one last hurrah, getting it in while he can.  He knows how his father is better than anyone.  He’ll come back.”  Eyeing Svetlana’s stormy expression, she changed the subject.  “Everything set for the baptism?”

Svetlana nodded.  “Yes.  Stupid husband said it was pointless, but I told him I break his kneecaps if he does not come.  Plus I told Terry all about it.  He is very excited.  Mickey will be there if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Nicely manipulated,” Dolly grinned  “I can’t believe you picked me as the godmother,” she beamed at that.

“Who better?”  Svetlana relaxed a little bit, returning Dolly’s smile.  “You think Arian will show up?  She is still mad at me.”

“Of course she will.  You two have a lot of years together.  She loves you deep down, no matter what.”

“I don’t think Arian loves anyone deep down,”  Svetlana shoved her empty bottle away.  

Dolly leaned forward then, eyes sparkling.  “Well then, how about Nika?  You invite her?”

Svetlana sighed.  “Yes,” she admitted after a moment, wincing at Dolly’s immediate squeal.  “Does not mean anything.  I invited a lot of the girls.”

“Whatever,”  Dolly sat back in her chair, still smirking.  “You like her.  I can tell.”

“She is alright,”  Svetlana mumbled, playing idly with her bottle cap.

“Well, from you that’s practically a declaration of true love.  Now we’re getting somewhere!”  Dolly giggled loudly at the look Svetlana gave her at that.  “Lannie and Nika, sitting in a tree...K I S S I N G!”

“What is wrong with you?”  Svetlana stared at Dolly. “You are drunk?”

“Just in love with love, my dear,”  Dolly waved at Kev as he passed by, holding up her empty bottle.  He nodded at her in return and went to get her a new one.  

“Love,”  Svetlana scoffed.  “Seen enough of what people around here call love. You can keep it,” she stood up then, ready to go back upstairs.  

“We’ll see!”  Dolly winked at her, leaving Svetlana shaking her head as she walked away.

* * *

Svetlana could hear the phone ringing inside the house as she struggled up the icy porch steps, once again carrying Yevgeny in his baby carrier and praying that she wouldn’t kill them both.  Just as she pushed open the door, it thankfully stopped.  

The house was empty and quiet again - not so much of a surprise these days.  As soon as Terry’s impending return had been announced, it felt less and less like a home and more like a trap, waiting to snap closed around all of them.

The phone started to ring again as she lifted Yevgeny out of his carrier.  Svetlana sighed loudly, considered ignoring it, then reluctantly carried him with her to pick up the receiver.

She winced hearing the electronic message she’d memorized over the past few days.  Terry again...seemed like he couldn’t bear to go more than a few hours without reminding them all that he’d soon be home to ruin everything all over again.  

“Svet!”  Terry was shout-speaking in her ears a second later.  “How’s everything going?”  

“Same as yesterday,”  she said drily.  “You?”

“Good, good,”  he sounded distracted, and there was an underlying edge to his voice that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.  “Getting anxious to get there.  Got everything ready for the baptism?”

“Yes, it is all arranged.  You are still going to be there?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,”  Terry boomed.  “Called a few times before you picked up.  Where’s everyone at?”

“I am not sure,”  Svetlana said carefully, hoping he didn’t hear the lie.  Iggy and Tasha had gone to stay with friends as soon as they’d heard Terry was coming back, Kenyatta had probably made Mandy go to work with him so he could keep an eye on her, and Mickey...well...

“Too bad,”  Terry said loudly.  “Would have liked to talk to Mickey but he ain’t ever there when I call.  You sure you still got everything in hand at home?  Keeping Mickey focused?”

“Of course,”  Svetlana replied, trying to inject false cheer into her voice.

“That so?”  Far too late, she heard the sneer in his tone.  “Because my nephew, Leo, came up to visit me yesterday, which is more than any of you ungrateful shits do.  And he had a lot of interesting things to tell me.  Like that Mickey hasn’t been home in a couple of weeks.  Rumor around the neighborhood is that he and that Ronald McDonald looking fag are shacking up.  Next thing you know they’ll be holding hands strolling up and down the sidewalk.  Wearing matching rainbow sweater vests and showing up to queer rights rallies.”

Svetlana couldn’t speak.

“You lied to me,”  his voice was low.  Dangerous.

“I didn’t mean to,”  she whispered.  “I just -”

“Shut the fuck up until I’m done talking,”  Terry hissed.  “See, you got one use to me.  You’re supposed to keep my son in line.  And if you can’t do that, I ain’t got no fucking use for you.”

 _Then let me go,_ she wanted to scream.   _Let me out of this nightmare.  Let me take my son and go far away from you and your whole twisted family._

“Wanna tell you a story,”  Terry’s tone changed abruptly, becoming light, cheerful.  It was almost more terrifying than his anger.  “It’s about this ruskie bastard.  Let’s call him...what’s a good Commie name?  How about Sergei?  Ok, anyway, this Sergei guy, he’s in our country illegally, right?  And he thinks he’s such a smart fuck, thinks he can whore around and con and lie - just not much of a team player, you know?  You still listening?”

“Yes,” she managed, growing colder by the second.

“And the thing is, Sergei thinks he’s got it made, because he married an American.  Thinks he got the fucking red, white and blue ticket.  Thinks he’s safe.  But Sergei really ain’t as smart as he thinks he is.  Cuz Sergei’s still nothing but an illegal immigrant whore.  Not to mention, Sergei’s up to his eyeballs in the drug trade.  Funny how he didn’t think anyone would find out about that, but like I said, Sergei ain’t too bright. And if INS finds that out, well, Sergei ain’t a citizen yet.  If his dumb ass gets deported right back to the shithole he came from, he don’t get to take the baby with him.  See, the family and the American parent of that baby, well, they got rights to that kid.  A lot more rights than a no good, whore drug dealing piece of shit.  You get me, suka?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her hand shaking so violently she could barely hold the phone.

“Good.  Glad to hear we’re on the same page.  I’ll see you at the church.  If you’re smart, you’ll clean up this mess before I get there.”

The line clicked off.

Svetlana’s legs felt like they wouldn’t hold her anymore.  The phone fell from her numb fingers, and she leaned against the wall, but that wasn’t enough.  Slowly, she slid down to the floor.  There was a harsh, rasping sound in her ears...it took her several seconds to release she was gasping for breath.  Her lungs were constricting more by the second.

Yevgeny whimpered and she tightened her arms around him protectively.  God, she’d been so fucking stupid - all this time she’d been so worried about Mickey using her venture into drug dealing against her that she’d forgotten all about the real threat.  And now she was going to pay for that in spades.

Yevgeny. It was worse than any nightmare she’d ever had, picturing it, her tiny, vulnerable son, alone in this house without her, at Terry’s mercy with no one to protect him.  Growing up terrorized and scarred, twisted and molded until he was just as violent, just as damaged, just as empty as her husband and his two older brothers.  

She’d rather die than let that happen.  

* * *

Svetlana felt like she could barely function the next morning, the dread that had seeped in her bones since Terry’s call the night before making her feel numb and sluggish.  It was a miracle she managed to get Yevgeny ready in time to make it to the church, especially as she spent half the morning trying to call Mickey.  He never answered, as usual, and she was forced to leave him a series of increasingly agitated voicemails.  If he didn’t show up with so much at stake, Terry wouldn’t get a chance to kill him because she’d beat him to death herself, and his Carrothead too.

It was her cell phone going off that delayed her next. It was only Dolly’s name popping up on the Caller ID that made her answer it, and then she was forced to spend the next ten minutes on the phone calming down her sobbing friend.  Seemed they’d had a sudden spat of customers at Garden Springs, and Sasha had flatly refused to allow Dolly to leave to attend the baptism.  Svetlana had to spend several minutes assuring Dolly that she was still Yevgeny’s godmother no matter what, cursing Sasha internally.  It was deliberate, she knew - petty vengeance from Sasha, a reminder that Svetlana would never be truly forgiven for stealing her girls.

At least Dolly would most likely be at The Alibi for the after party.  She could use the support, especially now.

When Svetlana arrived at the church, to her surprise, Arian had shown up after all, accompanying Raisa.  She was frosty at first, but visibly thawed when Svetlana asked her to be Dolly’s proxy for the ceremony.  It was a relief to have Arian genuinely smile at her again.  

Nika was there too.  Svetlana greeted her briefly, but when she started towards the front of the church, Nika grasped her arm.

“Are you alright?” she asked quietly.

Svetlana shook her off.  “Fine,” she started to move away again and Nika pulled her back.

“Sveta.  Talk to me.”

Svetlana turned back to her, ignoring the impatient gesturing from the priest awaiting her.  Nika watched her expectantly, waiting.

“Shithead husband has been shacked up with his boytoy for weeks.  I lied to Terry about it and he found out.  Now he is threatening to have me deported and keep my son.  I do not know what to do.”

Nika’s eyes widened in shock and she exhaled loudly.  “Fuck!  You can’t let Terry take you away from your son, especially not for that asshole you married.  He doesn’t give a shit whether you or his son live or die.”

“He has reason to hate me,”  Svetlana admitted after a moment, not quite meeting Nika’s eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, we all have our sad stories,”  Nika waved her hand impatiently.  “Fuck him and fuck Terry too.  Bastards, the pair of them.  There has to be something we can do.”

Svetlana shook her head.

“You’re not alone in this, you know,”  Nika persisted.

“Sveta!  They are saying to hurry!”  Arian interrupted, calling down from the platform.

Svetlana moved in that direction, then turned back.  “Thank you,” she told Nika quietly before she moved away.

Mickey still hadn’t shown up.  Svetlana surveyed the sparse crowd in frustration.  At least Terry wasn’t there either - she could only hope that he didn’t show up before Mickey did.

“Shall we begin?”  The priest stopped ogling Raisa long enough to ask her.

“No, we have to wait.  Terry will be here soon; he would be angry if we started without him,”  Svetlana handed the baby to Raisa and turned to stare at the crowd once again, willing Mickey to appear.  

Standing there, looking at the tiny crowd of hookers and hoodlums, it was hard to remember why she’d thought this whole ceremony was so important. Maybe Mickey was right; maybe this was a farce.  It was nothing more than a pitiful attempt to recreate similar events from her life in Russia, she could see that now.  

For a few seconds, as Svetlana’s eyes traveled over the empty benches, she saw other faces in the crowd, the faces of those that should have been there.

Tyotya Lena, beaming, blinking back tears as she gazed at them, clutching Irene’s hand at the same time.  And Katya...of course Katya would be here if the world worked the way it should.  Not in the crowd, but right at her side, proud and strong and unbroken.  

Yevgeny.  Her father.  This would have meant more to him than anyone else.  He would have been so thrilled to hold his first grandchild, honored to have the child bear his name.  Would have cried those tears he always so easily shed.  

And despite everything, right now she wanted that more than anything in the world.  Everything horrible that had ever happened to her had been his fault, but at this moment, she didn’t care.  

 _“It was three hundred dollars and he had his good points too,”_ she’d told Mickey the other day.  It was a lie.  And yet it was not.  Yevgeny had loved her.  It hadn’t stopped him from throwing her to the wolves, and yet, she remembered how that felt.  It was the backbone of that tiny bit of pride that she had clung to ever since.  It kept her standing through everything, knowing that no matter what, she was worth it still.

“Svetlana?  It is getting late,”  the priest’s voice broke into her thoughts.  Svetlana blinked again and they were gone, all of them, Lena, Irene, Katya, and Yevgeny.  She let them go without a fight. No time for ghosts today.

The front door of the church banged open then, and Svetlana breathed a sigh of mingled relief and annoyance when Mickey strode in.

* * *

Svetlana stood in the bathroom of the Alibi, her hands on either side of the sink, struggling for air.  “I cannot believe this,”  she hissed with the little bit of oxygen left in her lungs.  “I will kill them both.  Slit their fucking throats!”

“Sveta, calm down,”  With some difficulty, Nika pried her fingers off the sink and turned Svetlana to face her.  “Breathe.  We will figure something out.”

“Like what?”  Svetlana burst out.  “Terry will be here any minute and Carrot Boy is here!  He was at the baptism!  Fucking idiot husband is going to ruin everything!  That piece of shit - “  she couldn’t continue; all the air in her lungs was gone again and she was gasping for breath.

“Listen,”  Nika grasped her arms firmly.  “Let Terry see what his son is doing for himself.  Let Mickey take the blame.  And if worse comes to worse, we’ll run,” she grasped Svetlana’s hand tightly.  “You, me, and Yevgeny.  We will take him and go far away from here.”  

At a loss for words, Svetlana was trying to come up with something when the bathroom door burst open and Dolly came hurrying in.  “Lannie!”  she gasped.  “I’m so sorry about this morning.  Fucking Sasha - you know, it wasn’t even that busy?”  she broke off then, looking back and forth between Svetlana and Nika.  “What did I just interrupt?”

“Nothing,”  Svetlana pulled away from Nika.  “I am glad you are here.”

“Well, then, let’s go drink!”  Oblivious to the tension, Dolly led the way out of the bathroom.  

Svetlana and Nika shared one more look before she saw Mickey, filling a plate with food, and cold anger filled her once more.  She’d give him one more chance.  Either he got rid of the interloper, or they both were going to pay the price.  

***

Maybe it was her fault.  She had pushed too hard, threatened too much, and she’d seen the warning signs, the way Mickey seemed like he was stretching thinner and tighter until he finally snapped.

“I’m fucking gay.”

That was it.  Those three words had collapsed the world around her.  Her one tentative hold on this life, gone.  Her thin safety net, her only value in the Milkovich household, destroyed, in five seconds.  

Svetlana didn’t look for anyone else’s reactions; her eyes were on Terry.  He sat, stock still, stone faced, and then livid rage poured into his features.  He shoved Arian off his lap and charged.

Mickey’s face was a mask of resignation.  Svetlana watched as he just stood there, waiting for the inevitable, as his father thundered towards him, and despite everything, she couldn’t help but feel concern, a wish for him to fight back.

She got it a second later in the satisfying crash of the bottle hitting Terry’s head.  Disappointingly, it barely slowed down the infuriated man, but seconds later Carrot Boy, perhaps not so useless after all, came charging into the fray.

Svetlana slumped back and reached for her beer.  Since Terry was probably going to kill her next, she might as well sit back and enjoy the show.  Maybe she’d get lucky; they’d all kill each other instead and she’d be free at last.

As it turned out, she didn’t have much time to hold out for that; it was just a couple of minutes before police officers were storming through the doors.  Someone had already pulled Orange Boy away, but Mickey and Terry were still a murderous tangle of flying fists until the cops dragged them apart with some difficulty and marshalled them outside.

“Well,”  Nika fell into the seat next to Svetlana.  The bar was almost empty now; almost everyone had followed the drama outside.  “Looks like your father in law is going back to jail.  Problem solved.”

“For now,”  Svetlana agreed.  She couldn’t find it in her to see the bright side just yet.  “But now Mickey does not need me.  No reason to keep me around.”

Nika sighed.  “No point in worrying about it tonight.  He’s probably going to jail too, least for a couple of days.  We’ll figure it out later.  Come on,”  she pulled Svetlana to her feet.  

When they made their way to the sidewalk, the police car carrying Terry was just pulling away; she could hear him screaming epithets as it passed.  She was surprised to see another cop taking the handcuffs off of Mickey.

“They are letting him go?”  she turned to look for someone to fill her in and saw Dolly, Damian, and Arian nearby.  The three of them were nearly crying with laughter, doubled over and clutching each other so they wouldn’t fall on the icy concrete, gasping for breath.

“What happened?”  Svetlana demanded of Dolly.  

“Oh, Lannie, you missed a glorious show.  Your husband went entirely off!”  Dolly exclaimed. “You should have heard the things he was saying - he made me blush, and you know that ain’t no easy feat.  Terry’s face - ” she doubled over again.  “I can’t breathe!”

“ ‘He gives it to me good and hard and I like it!’ “ Damian wiped tears of mirth from his eyes.  “That was fucking beautiful, man.”

Svetlana sighed impatiently.  Clearly, she wasn't getting any answers here.

Nika narrowed her eyes as she looked at them.  "Glad you are so amused.  I do not think it is funny,” her gaze was icy.  “Svetlana needs him.  Now where are she and Yevgeny going to go, or do the three of you not care?”

That sobered up Dolly fast.  Alarmed, she looked up at Svetlana.  “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean -”

“Save it,”  Nika reached down and took Yevgeny’s car seat from Svetlana.  Mercifully, he was still asleep.  “Let’s get out of here.”

Gratefully, Svetlana took Nika’s outstretched arm.  

When they were at the corner, she looked back.  Mickey and his boy were sitting on the hood of a car, bashed up, but the way they looked at each other...they glowed.  Another rush of anger, but it was muted now by reluctant admiration.  When her piece of shit husband made up his mind to do something, he didn't go halfway.

The walk home was frigid, but thankfully quick.  Nika hesitated as they reached the front door.  "You want me to go?"  she asked quietly.

"No!"  Svetlana burst out, more emphatically than she'd meant to.  Nika looked entirely gratified by this.

When they got inside, Nika looked around.  "So...we're packing?  We could probably strip the place and be long gone before anyone shows up,"  Nika suggested after a minute.

"No,"  Svetlana clenched her jaw.  "Let Mickey try to throw me out.  He is not getting rid of me so easily."  A statement which should have been used in their marriage vows - it seemed to sum up their entire union.

Anything else she was going to say was lost as Yevgeny began to wail.  After Svetlana changed him, fed him, and put him in his bassinet to sleep, she rejoined Nika on the couch.

“You know what?”  Nika leaned back on the couch, eyes sizing Svetlana up.  “You need a night off.  Something to take your worries away,”  Nika grabbed her purse and dug through it.  A few seconds later she came back with a small glass vial.  “Try this.”

Svetlana stared at the vial in mute horror, growing colder by the second.  

“Sveta, what?”  Nika stared back, eyes wide.  “What’s wrong with you?”

“You like that?  Drugs?  You are junkie too?”  Svetlana ignored Nika’s stunned expression at that, grabbing her arms.  “You shoot up?”

“Stop it!”  Nika tried to pull away as Svetlana pushed up her sleeves, eyes racing across the pale surface of her skin, looking for the telltale needle marks.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”  Nika finally tore herself out of Svetlana’s grasp.

“I am not doing this again,”  Svetlana stumbled to her feet.  “I can’t.  I tried everything I could to hold on to her, and I lost her anyway.  I will not watch you disappear too.”

“Sveta!  Calm down and listen to me.  I am not Katya.  Do you understand me?”

When Svetlana tried to pull away, Nika put both her hands on either side of Svetlana's face, forcing her to look.  "I am not Katya," she repeated.  "I am not asking you to save me."

When Svetlana stepped back, Nika dropped her hands.  "It's no big deal.  Got it from a customer who was short on cash; I was gonna sell it but then I thought maybe -” she stopped herself.  “Sorry,"  she shoved the vial back in her purse.  "Maybe you''ll like this better..."  she pulled back to reveal a joint clutched in her fingers.   

Svetlana exhaled as Nika lit the joint, took a deep drag, then looked at her questioningly.

After a few seconds, she reached for it.   "Never bring that shit around me again."

"OK, no problem,"  Nika lifted up a hand in mock surrender.

After she'd taken a long drag, Svetlana sat down heavily on the bed, feeling it burn her lungs and her throat, exhaling out, enjoying the sleepy buzz spiraling through her.

"Nice, huh?"  Nika sat down next to her.  "I'm sorry, Sveta, really.  I should have remembered..." she bit her lip.  "I really never will be her, will I?" she finished quietly.

Svetlana looked at her, confused.  "What do you mean?"

"I'll never mean anything like what she meant to you.  I'll never be able to fill that place.  You'll never look at me like that.  No matter what,"  Nika was staring at the floor before she raised her head to stare in Svetlana's eyes, her frustration clear.  "I'm here, standing in front of you, and you look right through me.  I want you to see me.  And if that's never going to happen, tell me - "

The rest of her words were lost when Svetlana leaned forward and pressed her lips against Nika's.

***

So that’s what all the fuss was about.  Svetlana mulled it over, relaxed in the crook of Nika’s arm, the blankets in a messy tangle all around them.

“Have you really never…”  Nika murmured after a moment.

Svetlana shook her head silently, enjoying the tingling sensation that spread all throughout her at the movement.  That had been no ordinary joint that Nika had shared with her; it had been laced with something...everything was floaty and sparkles and she was so relaxed.  It was such a relief to not be worried for once.

“Never ever?  All your life?”  Nika was demanding, and it took a minute for Svetlana to pick up the thread of the conversation again.

“No.  That was the first time,”  she shook her head once more, playing with Nika’s fingers.

“Not even with Katya?”  

Svetlana sat up at that, a mild surge of annoyance making her head a little clearer.  “It was not like that with us,”  she said, dropping Nika’s hand.  “I loved her.  It was never about sex.”

“So I am really your first, then,”  Nika smiled before she leaned over to capture Svetlana’s lips with her own.  “So tell me...was it good for you?”

Svetlana laughed along with her.  “It was nice,” she finally decided.

“Oh, you sure know how to flatter a girl,”  Nika snorted.

“You should be,”  Svetlana sat up and moved closer.  “It has never been nice before.  Not with anyone.  It is just -”  she frowned, thinking about the new and completely foreign sensations she’d just experienced, remembering how it made her clutch the sheets; how it tore sounds out of her she did not know she was capable of making.  She’d enjoyed it, definitely, though she didn’t know if she liked the lack of control when she already felt like she had so little of it in her life.  “I still do not know why people think it is so important.  Pay for it, go bankrupt for it, ruin their lives for it, kill people for it…”  she paused, picturing the fight at the Alibi once more.  “Die for it, even.”

Nika shrugged.  “I still have a lot to teach you, then.”

“Oh, you think so?”  Svetlana raised an eyebrow at the note of superiority in Nika’s words.  Abruptly, she pushed them both over so that she was on top of Nika, straddling either side of her.  “You think you are teacher and I am student?  That I do not know what I am doing?”  she trailed her fingers along Nika’s thighs before nipping at her neck, enjoying Nika’s gasp.  “I can make you scream.  I can make you cry.  I can ruin you for anyone else if I want to.”

“I think you already have,”  Nika whispered back.

After the second time, she felt weightless, lazy, pleasantly adrift.  Unlocked, all her secrets and stories spilling out like a buried treasure no one wanted.  And yet Nika, propped up on her elbow, seemed fascinated.

“Tell me about you,”  Svetlana said finally, uncomfortable with so much up close scrutiny.

Nika stretched and yawned.  “Nothing to tell.  I am an open book,”  she chuckled at Svetlana’s arched eyebrow.  “OK, you want to hear something no one else really knows?  I play the trumpet.”

“You play the what?”  Svetlana stared at her.

“The trumpet,”  Nika mimed fingering an instrument, and Svetlana’s eyes widened in recognition.  “I saw this jazz band playing on a street corner when I was a kid, and it just - I don’t know...it sounded like I’d come home, you know what I mean?  So later on I traded with a guy for a secondhand trumpet and I’ve been playing ever since.”   

“You play the trumpet,”  Svetlana lay back down next to her.  “I would not have guessed.  I’d like to hear you sometime.”

“You’d regret it,” Nika snorted.  “Not like I’ve ever had proper lessons or anything.  I sound like shit, but it’s fun,” she turned on her side to run her fingers through Svetlana’s hair, moving it back from her face.  “Anyway, there you are.  My big dark secret is out.”

“Hmm,”  Svetlana murmured.  She was starting to drift off, would have been asleep in just a moment, when another thought nudged her out of her doze.  “Where is your accent?”  Svetlana sat up suddenly.  

Nika’s eyes widened.  She sat up as well, looking at Svetlana warily.  “What do you mean?”

“I noticed it before,”  Svetlana was trying to puzzle it out, but she still felt so foggy that each word had to be grasped firmly before being spoken.  “At the church.  And other times too.  Sometimes you have accent, sometimes you don’t.”

Nika’s smile was a little abashed.  “Sure, I do.  It’s called a New York accent.  I lived there since I was nine.”

She threw the blankets back and walked naked across the room, bending over to grab the jacket she’d left on the ground and retrieving a pack of cigarettes from the pocket.

“So you’ve been faking it, all this time?  Why?”  Svetlana demanded, clutching the blanket to her.

Nika came back to sit on the end of the bed, inhaling.  After a moment she blew out smoke and shook her head.  “I haven’t faked anything.  I put on a show for our customers; they love the ‘dumb foreign girl’ bit.  You oughta know that.  

“You put on a show for me too?”  Svetlana said slowly.

Nika bit her lip.  “It’s not the same thing.”

“It is not?”  Svetlana sat up.  “You let us all think you were something you were not.  You let me believe it.  You fucked me letting me believe it.”

“What, all the sudden I’m not actually Russian because I’ve been here longer than most of you?  Because I have to fake my accent?”  Nika crossed her arms defensively.  “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.  I didn’t need one more thing to separate me from you.  Already felt like I was trying to cross the ocean just to stand by your side.”

Svetlana looked away at that.

After a pained silence, Nika came back to the bed, sitting down next to Svetlana.  “I can’t stop you for using this as a reason to push me away, but don’t pretend it’s anything but an excuse.”

Svetlana continued to study the wall for a long moment before she turned back to her.  “New York?”

Nika exhaled loudly.  She reached for Svetlana’s hand, lacing their fingers together.  “Yeah.  My mother moved us there when I was little.  I was twelve when she got busted for some mail order bride scam she was running.  Kindest thing that bitch ever did for me was ‘forgetting’ to tell INS she had a daughter.”

“Wait…”  Svetlana squeezed her hand mindlessly.  “She was deported?  You were left here by yourself?  Who took care of you?

Nika shrugged.  “I took care of me.  Bounced around from place to place, lived off favors, learned how to steal and suck dick.  If one skill didn’t get me what I needed, the other one did.”

“I’m sorry,”  Svetlana managed finally.

“Like I said before, we all have our sad stories,”  Nika shivered slightly and crawled back under the covers, holding up the blanket for Svetlana to slide in next to her.  “At least mine is in the past.  It is you we have to take care of now.”

Svetlana sighed, a little of her previous worry coming back.  She reached for the pack of cigarettes on the bedside table.  “I do not know what to do,” she admitted.  “I need Mickey.  This is the only home I have, the only job I have, the only way I can become legal.  If he leaves me for this ginger brat, what happens to Yevgeny then?”

“You are giving up too easily, Sveta.  You are a professional.  You spend most of your life figuring out what a man needs and delivering.  Your husband is more challenging, yes, but think of it as another job.  What does he want?  What does he need?”

Svetlana rolled her eyes, blowing out a puff of smoke.  “We both know what he wants, Nika.  Am I supposed to grow red hair and a dick now?”

She was not expecting the slow grin that appeared on Nika’s face after a few seconds.  “Get dressed.  I just had a great idea.”

Svetlana was loathe to leave their warm bed, but Nika pulled and teased and cajoled until Svetlana climbed out of the cocoon of blankets and pulled her clothes on.  

When they stumbled out of the bedroom, hand in hand, they found Mandy awake on the couch, still in her Waffle Cottage uniform, smoking a cigarette and looking like a poster child for disaffected youth.  She’d pulled Yevgeny’s bassinet up next to her, Svetlana noticed with a rush of gratitude, and he was still sleeping soundly.

“It’s not like I can sleep, anyway,”  Mandy waved them off when Svetlana asked her to watch Yevgeny.  “Between you two and them-” she pointed to Mickey’s closed door, “It’s like being ringside at a big, gay rodeo.  A fucking noisy one.”

“So he is back,” Svetlana said slowly.  “Both of them are.”

“Yeah,”  Mandy looked at her.  There was sympathy in her expression, but determination as well.  “I’d get used to it if I were you.”

Nika made a skeptical noise at that, ushering Svetlana out the door and into the icy night.

They were frozen, but giggling, when they stumbled through the door of the 24 hour XXX store on Halsted.  The bored man at the counter looked up briefly, then returned to whatever game he was playing on his phone.  

“Over here, I think,”  Nika tugged Svetlana down the aisle, bypassing Pocket Pussys and racks of permanently startled looking blow up dolls until they reached the far wall.  It was lined with packaged strapons in every shape, size, and color imaginable.

“Here we go,”  Nika grabbed one off the wall and tossed it to Svetlana.  “Now all you have to do is say ‘bend over baby, I’ll drive!’ “

Svetlana snorted, shaking her head.  “I have seen what boyfriend is packing.  Mickey is not giving up anything for that tiny piece of plastic. ’”

“Oh, well, excuse me,”  Nika snorted as she tossed her offering on the ground and looked again.  “Here we go...jumbo!  Guaranteed to satisfy even the sassiest of size queens,” she threw a much larger version towards Svetlana.

“Better,”  Svetlana admitted as Nika grabbed her hand, tugging her over to the next aisle.  They found themselves standing before a wall full of costumes and racks of cheap, plastic looking wigs in every color of the rainbow.  Nika touched a strawberry colored one and looked at Svetlana expectantly.  “Try it.”

Svetlana just raised an eyebrow, causing Nika to laugh again.  “Here,”  she grabbed the wig and tugged it over Svetlana’s hair, ignoring her protests.  She stepped back to survey her work, tilting her head critically.  “No.  Horrible,”  she snatched the wig off, smoothing back Svetlana’s hair.

“Much better,” Nika whispered as she leaned forward to kiss her. They stumbled backwards into another rack, causing the clerk to cough loudly. “Hey ladies!  If you’re gonna put on a show, at least let me charge admission.”

“Pig,”  Nika grumbled as she pulled back.  A second later, her eyes widened and she bent down to pick up something from the bottom shelf, coming up with a dusty box.  

“Radiant Red, permanent hair color” she read the label out loud.  “What do you think, Sveta?  Ready to commit?”

* * *

It was just past dawn when Svetlana awoke abruptly.  For a moment she was at a complete loss, not recognizing her surroundings, until Nika stirred beside her and the events of last night began to drift back in foggy pieces.  

Her eyes took in the unfamiliar walls, remembering now that she was in Terry’s room.  Her room now, if she had anything to say about it.  She certainly wasn’t going to bunk with Mickey and Orange Boy.

Svetlana reached up to smooth back her hair, but the texture felt different.  She frowned for a moment before a dimly lit memory returned and she grabbed a handful of hair, craning her neck to see the unnatural red.

“Oh, God,” she groaned.  “I look like scary burger clown.  Why did we do this?”

Next to her, Nika yawned, eyes reluctantly opening. “We were high.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“So did this,”  Svetlana looked at the enormous strapon on the floor next to the bed, still in its plastic casing.  She considered it for a long moment before looking back at Nika, who looked like she was having a hard time not falling back asleep.  “Mickey is really gay, isn’t he?”

Nika nodded slowly.  “Yeah, I think he is.”

“And he wants Carrot Boy.  No one else.”

“If not, he took hell of a beating for nothing,”  Nika shifted, stretching.  Svetlana took a moment to enjoy the view before she continued.

“There is no way this is going to work, is it?”  Svetlana tugged on her hair.

Nika judged Svetlana’s expression before she shook her head.  She turned to look at the digital clock on the bedstand and winced.  “Shit.  I gotta go.  George likes me at home to cook breakfast and suck his dick,”  she lifted her shoulders at the look on Svetlana’s face.  “It pays the rent.”

“For the garage with no heat that he so kindly allows you to sleep in,”  Svetlana sat up, watching as Nika dressed.  “I am sorry,” she added quietly after a minute.  “It is our fault that this happened to you and the other girls.  We ruined everything with Sasha.”

Nika shrugged as she pulled on her clothes.  “Something would have fucked it up eventually.  We’ll survive, just like we always do

“Hmm,”  Svetlana stood up, shrugging into her robe, and then grabbed the strap on from the floor.

“Thought you said it wouldn’t work,”  Nika looked confused.

Svetlana shrugged.  “Maybe not.  But I want to see the look on his face,” With that, she leaned forward to kiss Nika goodbye.  When she pulled back, she saw the surprise on the other woman’s face.

“What is that look for?”  she asked.

Nika smiled then.  “I thought maybe you would leave that behind with last night too,” she opened the door to go.  “I will be back later.  If you want.”

“Bring your trumpet,”  Svetlana called after her and the front door closed on the sound of Nika’s laughter.

* * *

“Sveta, what do you want me to do with these sheets?”  

Svetlana looked up to see Nika holding up a plastic bag, yellowed sheets peeking out of the top.  She shuddered.  “They were Terry’s.  Throw them out.”  

“OK then,”  Nika threw the bag across the living room.  It landed next to the front door.  “You are throwing away a lot of his stuff.  Won’t he be mad?”

“Do not care,”  Svetlana shrugged and finished changing Yevgeny’s diaper, tickling his tummy when she was done.

“Where is Mickey?”  Nika asked then, flopping down next to her on the couch and handing her Yevgeny’s onesie to finish dressing him.

“Where do you think?”  Svetlana nodded towards the bedroom door.  “Babysitting his boyfriend, like usual.”  It had been two days since Mickey had come back, two days since everything had changed.  She could not pretend like all her resentment towards her husband had gone, and she was sure he could say the same towards her.  Still, she’d take any peace she could get, and she was sure at this point he felt the same.  He had enough to worry about as it was.  She wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong with Orange Boy, but from the snippets of conversation she’d heard, it wasn’t anything good.

“Huh,”  Nika leaned towards her.  “What the fuck is manic depression, anyway?” Through the crack in the doorway they could see Mickey, pulled up in the chair next to the bed, watching over Carrot Boy as he slept.

Svetlana shrugged.  “Don’t know.  His sister said it is bad mood problem, up and down.  Like rollercoaster in his head.”

“Oh,”  Nika frowned.  “And you are still going to let him stay here? Make everyone go up and down on this rollercoaster with him?”

Svetlana took a deep breath.  “That’s what Mickey wants.”

“What about you?  What are you going to do?”  Nika turned her eyes away from the doorway, waiting for Svetlana’s answer.

Svetlana didn’t get a chance to answer; abruptly, Mickey stood up and walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.  If he was aware of their attention, he gave no sign of it.  Instead, he slumped down on the chair next to them, looking utterly exhausted.

“He any better?”  Svetlana indicated the bedroom with a tilt of her head.

“No,”  Mickey said flatly.  Shadows circled his eyes, even deeper purple than his healing bruises.

“Want a drink?”  Nika asked him after an uncomfortable silence.  

“Sure,” Mickey muttered, and Nika jumped up, looking relieved to have an excuse to get away.

A few seconds later, she brought back a couple of glasses, handing one to him and the other to Svetlana.  “Here you are,” she said brightly.  “I am going to go to work now.”

“You do that,”  Mickey’s tone was sour. 

Nika rolled her eyes as she left, leaving the two of them to another drawn-out period of silence.  

“I can’t say it,”  Mickey said out of nowhere.

Svetlana nearly dropped her drink in surprise when she realized he was talking to her.

“Say what?”  she managed to ask after a moment.

“His name.  The kid’s,”  Mickey indicated Yevgeny. “I can’t pronounce that fucking shit.”  he didn’t say anything else, just swirled the liquor in his glass moodily.

“We can call him Geno,”  Svetlana offered quickly.  “Is common nickname for Yevgeny.”

Mickey didn’t say anything for a long moment, continuing to stare into his glass.  She was about to give up when he looked up again.  

"Geno, huh?”  he paused, considering.  “That’s better.  Geno it is,”  with that, he tipped his drink just the slightest bit towards her before he swallowed the rest of it in one go.  It took her a moment to realize it was a toast, of sorts.

He stood up then, and she was alarmed to see how unsteady he was on his feet.  There was no way one drink should have done that to him.

“Sit down before you fall down,” Svetlana stood up, pointing at his vacated seat.  “I will make you something to eat.”

“I don’t want anything,”  Mickey objected.

“You cannot take care of him if you do not take care of yourself,” she said impatiently.  Mickey lifted his head and stared at her.  “You eat,” she continued.  “Then we see if we can get him to eat too, yeah?”

Something flickered in Mickey’s eyes at that, and she was glad.  Perhaps, at last, he was starting to understand that they were in this together.  His Orange Boy had caused her nothing but trouble, and she’d seen no indication that he was going to do anything besides bring more of the same in the future.

But Mickey loved him.

She’d known it for sure the second she’d asked him about it.  Been pleased by his refusal to confirm it.  He was like her after all, she was realizing, at least in that way.  He would not say it lightly.  

And in that relief showing so plainly on her husband’s face, his realization that he did not have to do this alone, she had the answer to Nika’s question.

She was going to be a good wife.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was by far the hardest to write. My goal was not to try to excuse everything that Svetlana has done, but to give her a voice. I hope I was successful. And thank you a thousand times over for your patience!
> 
> All of your support, comments, and encouragement have meant so much to me and kept this story going. Thank you so much for that!
> 
> I would very much like to hear your comments on this chapter as well. Thank you for reading!
> 
> There are several people who have been so encouraging in regards to this fic, so much so that I need to say a personalized thank you to each of you at some point. But for now, I do need to give up to my lovely Zebrawallpaper, who has dug me out of the pits of despair regarding this fic more than once. Without her, it would not have continued, and I am so grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially a much longer chapter, so I don't think there will be too long of a wait for the second. It will be a few chapters before Mickey and Ian make their appearance, but that is definitely in the works.
> 
> And a big thank you to BraveKate for filling in a lot of blanks for me regarding Russian terms, etc. We may see more of those put to use in the next chapter.
> 
> Thank you so much for taking a chance on this fic. I'd love to hear what you think.


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